LOUISVILLE, American Samoa, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- Four officers with the Louisville Metro Police have been fired for beating a handcuffed prisoner.
Chief Robert White, in a letter sent the officers this week, said that the force involved was "unnecessary, unprovoked, excessive and criminal," the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.
The victim, Erik Wolfe, was originally arrested in August 2003 by an off-duty officer working as a bouncer in a bar. The newspaper reports that Wolfe admitted being uncooperative with police.
But White says that the beating occurred after Wolfe had been handcuffed and placed in the back of a squad car, that the officer driving the car pulled off the road.
Lawyers for the officers say they are appealing the disciplinary action.
In their report, the officers said that Wolfe began banging his head on the partition and then attacked the driver when he opened the door to try to get him under control.
Wolfe himself never filed a complaint on the incident. But senior officers decided to investigate after reading the report and seeing pictures of Wolfe after the beating.
