Attorney explains lawsuit stemming from Shortridge H.S. student hit by police officer.punching a high school studentRobert Lawson was convicted by a jury of official misconduct and suspended without pay from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department in connection with the Aug. 29, 2019, incident. He was struck from the Shortridge High School student’s lawsuit Feb. 8.Marion Superior Judge John M. T.
His aunt"cursed and screamed” at police, according to the affidavit, and asked why her nephew was in handcuffs when, she claimed, he was the victim.IMPD officer caught on video striking Shortridge student charged with battery, perjury Lawson also grabbed the student by the back of the neck and shoulder, and brought him down while raising his leg “in what appears to be a knee strike, to the chest/abdomen area,” according to the IMPD detective who wrote the affidavit.Lawson wrote in his affidavit of the incident that he performed an “open hand palm strike,” and said it was “successful.”But after reviewing a video recording of the arrest, former Indianapolis police chief Bryan Roach said he saw it differently.
The student’s lawsuit claimed Lawson falsified a police report and used excessive force. Lawson denied those claims, arguing his actions were self-defense in front of a teenager who, at the time, was “contributorily negligent and/or comparatively at fault,” his response to the lawsuit reads. Marion Superior Judge Charnette D. Garner vacated the convictions of perjury and false informing after Lawson’s legal team argued they amounted to punishment for the same crime. He was sentenced to 363 days probation.
By including the sergeant's alleged statement, Kautzman says Lawson wasn’t treating it as his own statement of a fact, but rather a “recitation of his interpretation and recollection of information provided by a third party.”Besides, the attorney contends, it wasn’t a relevant fact in Lawson’s affidavit because he arrested the student for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest — not for attempted battery. Lawson"never misled anyone," the petition states.