Syracuse, NY -- Syracuse police tasered a disabled man three months ago on a Centro bus because he wouldn't sit down or step off.

In a video of the May 3 incident, taken from a security camera above the driver's seat, Brad Hulett can be heard yelling "Ow! Owwww!" after two police officers lift his shirt and hit him with a Taser in the back.

Brad Hulett was tasered by Syracuse police downtown May 3 after he refused to sit or get off a Centro bus. A video shows police dragging Hulett from the bus. He suffered a broken hip in the incident, according to hospital records. The scar on his left leg is from an incision doctors made to place three pins onto the hip.

Hulett then falls as the officers, Sgt. William Galvin Jr. and Officer William Coleman, drag him off the bus. Outside the bus, Galvin stands over him as Hulett lies on the pavement at Centro's downtown hub.

"You want it again?" Galvin yells at Hulett in the video. "You want it again?"

Galvin then grabs Hulett's right foot and drags him about 10 feet along the pavement.

The officers charged Hulett with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct.

Hulett, 35, suffered a broken left hip in the incident, according to medical records from Upstate Medical University. He has a seven-inch scar from a surgery May 4 in which doctors inserted three pins in the hip.

Hulett said in an interview with The Post-Standard that he needed to stand on the bus while holding a pole because a back injury made sitting on buses difficult.

Hulett filed notices last week saying he intends to sue the city, Centro and Onondaga County.

He claims the officers used excessive force by tasering him and roughing him up as they got him off the bus. And he claims they weren't justified in charging him because they gave him no warning that he'd be arrested if he didn't get off the bus.

He's planning to sue the county over his treatment at the Justice Center jail. He was brought into the jail in a wheelchair, but a deputy twice made him get out of the wheelchair and try to walk through a metal detector, according to a video from the jail's booking section.

In the jail video, Hulett warns the deputy that his left leg was injured and that he wouldn't be able to stand. Hulett collapses into the deputy's arms both times he tries to stand.

Hulett claims a jail nurse did an improper assessment of his condition, resulting in him sitting in a cell overnight with a broken hip.

Hulett has lived through tough times. In 1991, when he was 12, he was struck by two trains in Salina, one right after the other. Doctors had to remove a portion of his brain to save his life. He has a large dent in the right side of his skull.

The brain damage caused weakness on his left side. Hulett's left hand is almost useless. It's in a permanently curled position. He's walked with a cane ever since the incident on the bus.

His lawyer, Rick Guy, called the tasering a perverse irony.

"The officers say they're there because it's a safety issue," Guy said. "We're going to zap you, who have an apparent neurological condition, with a neurological weapon because we want to prevent you from being harmed by a moving bus."

Syracuse police spokesman Sgt. Tom Connellan would not comment because the case is the subject of a possible lawsuit. Galvin did not return a phone message.

Centro spokesman Steve Koegel said he also couldn't comment on Hulett's claims because of the pending litigation. But he did respond generally.

"Centro drivers are trained to constantly assess passenger safety and take action where they feel passenger safety may be a concern," Koegel wrote in an email. "This includes requesting passengers to sit when seats are available."

Onondaga County Attorney Gordon Cuffy also declined to comment.

Hulett said he has two herniated discs in his back from a car accident. That condition makes it difficult to sit down while riding a bus, he said. He's frequently ridden Centro buses standing up, and has never fallen, he said.

"I do it every time I get on the bus," he said. "It doesn't go fast enough to break my grip."

He'd ridden on another Centro bus that day and the driver did not ask him to sit, he said. Two months earlier, another driver told him to sit and when he refused, a police officer told Hulett to get off so they could talk, Hulett said.

Hulett got off that day, but Centro officials would not give him his $1 fare back, he said. The bus left without him, he said.

"I fell for that before," Hulett said. "If I get off, they shut the door and take off."

In the video, which Guy obtained from Centro through a Freedom of Information Law request, bus driver Lester Wallace asks Hulett to take a seat.

"I'm fine," Hulett says.

"You can't ride like that, sir," Wallace says. Hulett repeats that he's fine, that he isn't hurting anyone, and that it's his right to stand if he wants. Wallace then gets his supervisor, Michael Robinson, and off-duty Syracuse police officer William Coleman, who was working as a part-time security officer for Centro.

"It's a safety issue," Coleman tells Hulett in the video. "Have a seat or get off the bus, or go to jail. We'll have option three here in a minute."

Coleman leaves and returns two minutes later with Galvin, the police sergeant, who tells Hulett again to sit or get off.

"I'm giving you an order to get off the bus," Galvin says.

"For what reason?" Hulett asks.

"We're conducting an investigation," Galvin says. "Get off the bus."

"For what reason?" Hulett asks again. "I haven't done anything that's not in my right to do."

Shortly after that, both officers get behind Hulett and lift the back of his shirt.

"I'm going to hit you with a Taser, OK? Ready?" Galvin says in the video. Then there's a clicking sound of the Taser striking Hulett, and his cries of pain.

The first jolt wasn't bad, Hulett said in the interview.

"It was nothing I couldn't handle," he said. "Then it felt like they jacked the voltage up because I could feel it a lot better."

He was worried about effect the Taser might have on his heart because he'd had open-heart surgery, Hulett said.

In a statement Wallace filed with Centro, the driver said he wanted Hulett to sit for safety reasons.

"I didn't think it would be safe to move the bus with this person standing," Wallace's written statement said. Later in the video, another passenger is standing as the bus is moving. He's in the same spot where Hulett had been.

After his 1991 accident, Hulett sued Amtrak and Conrail and settled for an undisclosed amount. Guy, who was Hulett's lawyer for that lawsuit, would say only that the case was "resolved very much in Brad's favor."

The criminal charges against Hulett are pending in City Court, before Judge Ted Limpert. Guy said he intends to ask the judge for an outright dismissal or to go to trial. There will be no plea-bargaining, he said.

"There was no probable cause to support either charge," Guy said.

The officers never told Hulett he would be arrested unless he complied, only that they were conducting an investigation, Guy said, citing the bus video.

"So his intention could've been in no way related to resisting arrest," Guy said. "His intention was to ride the bus."

In a report filed with Centro, supervisor Robinson said he heard Galvin tell Hulett that he'd be charged with resisting arrest and disorderly conduct unless he got off the bus. But neither officer makes that statement in the video.

A Syracuse police report says that, before tasering Hulett, the officers initially told him he'd be arrested, then that he was under arrest.

"Hulett was informed that he was preventing the bus from completing its scheduled route and the safe passage of the other passengers on the bus," the report said.

Even if the arrest was legal, the officers used excessive force against Hulett, Guy said.

Hulett questioned the officers' claim that they were concerned for his safety in riding standing up.

"I'm unsafe, according to them," he said. "But I'm safe enough to be able to taser for no reason?"

Contact John O'Brien at jobrien@syracuse.com or 315-470-2187.

