LLANO, Texas — The Llano police chief and three other police officers that were indicted for their arrest of a man in 2017 have been accused in a lawsuit for excessive force against the victim.
According to the lawsuit, the police officers falsely arrested the plaintiff, Cory Nutt, after an incident with former Llano Officer Matthew Grant Harden, who was off duty at the time.
On May 2, 2017, Nutt was outside his private camper when a red truck going above the speed limit of 10 mph sped by, according to the lawsuit. Nutt allegedly yelled at the truck to slow down. Then, Harden, who was not in his uniform, backed up the truck and told Nutt he was an off-duty police officer.
The lawsuit states Nutt told Harden that, "in his opinion, he was going too fast when not in his patrol car," explaining that there were several elderly tenants walking their dogs at night that could be hurt if struck by a speeding vehicle.
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Around 10:40 p.m. that same evening, Harden returned to Nutt's camper to arrest him for public intoxication, the lawsuit said. According to the bodycam video cited in the lawsuit, after Nutt refused to leave his home, former officer Jared Latta, Aimee Shannon and former llano police chief Kevin Ratliff arrived and pushed Nutt out of his camper. He was also allegedly threatened with a taser.
Nutt was falsely charged with public intoxication and booked into the Llano County Jail, where the charged against him were subsequently dropped, the lawsuit said.
Harden, Shannon, Latta and Ratliff will be on trial for excessive force and arrest without probable cause.
KVUE reached out to the Llano Police Department for a statement.They responded:
"The City has not been served with any lawsuit involving Cory Nutt. However, the City was made aware of the filing of the Cory Nutt lawsuit just this morning but has not had sufficient time to review and evaluate the claims made against the City. It is the City of Llano’s policy to not comment regarding the specifics of ongoing litigation involving the City."
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