LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A 15-year police veteran was demoted in June after he verbally abused and used another officer's taser to intimidate a young girl inside a holding cell last November, according to police documents obtained by WHAS11.
On Nov. 15, 2022, a teenage girl was brought into the Shively Police Department and placed in a cell. According to authorities, as she sat in the cell, she remained handcuffed.
Ten minutes after being placed in the cell, an officer asked if she wanted the cuffs removed, but she denied and continued to scream and kick the door.
Sgt. Tim Salyer was sitting in his office when he heard her “screaming and hollering and kicking the cell door.”
“She was so loud with her screaming and kicking that she’s pretty much disrupting the whole department,” he said in a March interview as part of the department’s internal investigation into the incident.
Salyer said he took it upon himself to say something to the girl.
According to police documents, prior to entering the girl's cell, Salyer asked Officer Mike Thompson for his taser and Thompson gave it to him.
Surveillance video shows when Salyer opened the cell door, he sounded the taser and had it already pointed at the girl. He demanded she be quiet and sit down.
He offers to take her to the restroom and remove the handcuffs but doesn't appear to like how unruly the girl is being and the way she talks back.
Video from inside the cell shows Salyer lunging at the girl and bringing the taser within inches of the back of her leg.
"You are not an adult. I am in charge here, not you, understand? This is my f------ building!" he screams at her before asking Thompson to remove the handcuffs from her. "If you get back up and kick my door again, I will put you in shackles on the floor."
He later explained to investigators that the arcing of the taser was to calm her down and it didn't touch her; “That was it. It was never to touch her. Never to use force.”
“She calmed down, then she cut back excited again, started cussing,” he said. “I cussed back. Um, I popped the taser off once or twice more to try to get her to calm down and sit down, and try to—you know, comply.”
According to department spokesperson Sgt. Jordan Brown, Thompson later reported the incident, which was recorded on Thompson’s bodycam and CCTV, to Shively Police Chief Colonel Emery Frye.
Frye said Salyer’s actions that day set a negative example for the department and “is not what we tolerate nor want in a leader.”
“We as officers encounter people on a regular basis and at times we encounter people that are being irrational and that are angry, but we as officers must always be professional,” he said. “You as a commanding officer are held to a higher standard.”
As a result of the months-long internal investigation, Salyer was found to be in violation of several department policies. He was demoted from his rank of Major to Sergeant in June 2023.
"I shouldn't have done what I've done," Salyer told investigators. "But at the heat of the moment, and trying to keep the female from hurting herself or causing any more trouble, I did what I had to do."
‘He never tried to stop me.’
Salyer told investigators that he believes he isn’t the only person who should face disciplinary action.
He said Thompson was in the cell when he quietly handed over his taser but later said Thompson was right outside the girl’s cell when he got the taser.
“I have a problem with this,” he said. “Because if this officer feels like I broke any policies, then he has actually broken policies also. He handed me his taser. He also went in the cell with me and never intervened.”
“If he thought I was doing something wrong, then this officer should have…has a duty to intervene when he sees something, and he failed to do so. Instead, he decided to record the situation to try to retaliate against, is what I feel, against me and the command staff,” Salyer continued.
Chief Frye said it’s unclear where Salyer asked for the taser and when Thompson gave it to him, “but it is clear that it happened prior to you entering the cell.”
Brown said Thompson’s actions were examined as part of the investigation.
"During our internal investigations, we examine every aspect of the incident in question," he said. “It was determined that policy was followed by Officer Thompson when he reported the incident to the Chief of Police."
Brown said Andre Bottoms was promoted to the rank of Major on Aug. 7, 2023.
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