Louisville police released photos of the “injuries” a cop sustained from an altercation involving the world No.1 golfer Scottie Scheffler last month—and they border on comical.
Scheffler had his quartet of charges, including second-degree assault of a police officer, dropped late last month, and Friday’s photo release gave a glimpse into why. The “visible injuries” that the cop complained about consisted of a (slightly) scraped knee and wrist.
Also included was the first public glimpse of the officer’s famously ripped $80 pants, which he’d claimed were “destroyed beyond repair” by Scheffler.
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The new photo confirmed there was a rip in department-issued pants about the size of a bar of soap.
The officer at the center of the controversy, detective Bryan Gillis, rejected suggestions of heavy-handedness in a statement on May 29 in which he suggested he was in the right to pursue charges against Scheffler of second-degree assault of a police officer, third-degree criminal mischief, reckless driving, and disregarding traffic signals from an officer.
“To be clear, I was drug by the car, I went to the ground, and I received visible injuries to my knees and wrist,” he said. “I’m going to recover from it, and it will be OK.”
That was a step back from his initial police report, in which he wrote that he was left with “pain, swelling, and abrasions” to his “left wrist and knee.”
Now, Gillis is yet again at the butt of countless jokes as the ordeal continues to be an embarrassment for Louisville cops.
Along with the photos, police also released files and other notes in a 63-page report that said three cops at the scene failed to turn on their body-worn cameras while taking Scheffler into custody—a breach of department policy.
The report added that Gillis received counseling after the incident, WDRB reported. In other footage, he was heard explaining to an officer at the scene why he never activated his camera.
“No, I wasn’t [recording] at the time, I wasn’t expecting to be run over,” Gillis reportedly said.
The incident took place on a rainy morning in Louisville on May 17, while Scheffler was driving to the clubhouse at the PGA Championship—a tournament he went on to finish 8th in, teeing off mere hours after he was booked into a Kentucky jail and had his mugshot taken.
There’d been a fatal accident involving a pedestrian near the clubhouse early that morning, and Gillis and other officers had been directing traffic around it. Gillis claimed that Scheffler ignored his commands and eventually ran him over, dragging him 50 feet before stopping.
That account wasn’t corroborated by witnesses, as other officers said their view was blocked by a shuttle bus. ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington, who was at the scene, reported that Scheffler mistook the cops for security officers. When officers told him to stop and he didn’t, “the police officer attached himself to the vehicle. Scheffler then traveled another 10 yards before stopping the car,” Darlington said.
Scheffler later described the ordeal as being “a very chaotic situation” and that there was “a big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do. I never intended to disregard any of the instructions.”
Steve Romines, Scheffler’s attorney, has grilled Gillis and accused him of making a false arrest. He said his client had grounds to sue the police department, but wouldn’t to spare Louisville taxpayers the money and his client the headache.
“Everything that will come out will show that Scottie did absolutely nothing wrong,” Romines said in a statement Friday. “In that moment he wasn’t sure what had happened and had been told the false story from the citation which is contradicted by multiple eye witnesses and video.”
