A patrol-car camera captured a Eugene police supervisor telling officers they would "be screwed" if they didn't file charges against a man who was threatening to sue them for civil rights violations.



The man, 55-year-old Michael Lee Kemp, filed a federal lawsuit this week that accuses the city of Eugene and three officers of needlessly forcing him to sit in the mud for an hour and wrongfully charging him with a crime.



Kemp's troubles began at roughly 2 a.m. on Nov. 19, 2008, when he finished a 10-hour shift at Lantz Cabinets and began walking home in a cold rain. On a sidewalk outside the company property, Kemp was accosted by a man identified in his lawsuit as "a known heroin addict," who began screaming at him.



Public records show the man had a history of drug arrests. He also had a history with Kemp.



About a month earlier, Kemp had gotten the man thrown out of a veteran's rehabilitation home in Eugene because he was using drugs there, the lawsuit alleges. Kemp, fearing he had come looking to retaliate, stepped off the sidewalk and began to cross the street.



Two police officers, Shawn Trotter and Robert Meador, suddenly pulled up in their patrol car and turned on their overhead lights. The officers stepped out of the car and ordered Kemp to go back across the street and join his "friend."



Kemp told the officers that the man wasn't his friend and "that he was just leaving work and was walking home," according to the lawsuit. But the officers told Kemp he was lying and using drugs.



Kemp resented the comments and asked the officers to check with his employer if they didn't believe him.



Trotter then threatened to arrest him, the lawsuit alleges. Kemp asked why he was being detained and tried to assert his legal rights. But the two officers twisted his arms behind his back and handcuffed him, according to the suit.



Kemp says the officers forced him to sit in the cold mud for about an hour and called for a supervisor. When Officer Larry Crompton appeared, Kemp asked why he was handcuffed and said he would seek redress, the suit alleges.



It was then -- under threat of legal action -- that officers decided to charge him, according to Kemp's suit. His lawyer has obtained a videotape, captured by a patrol-car camera, in which Crompton is heard talking to the two other officers.



"I'm not gonna let him smart off to me," Crompton said.



Crompton, clearly frustrated, said Kemp wouldn't calm down and kept threatening to file a complaint against them.



"You have no choice, you gotta charge the guy," Crompton told the other officers. "Otherwise we are screwed."



Police took Kemp to jail on a misdemeanor charge of interfering with a police officer. They also ticketed him for being a pedestrian improperly on the highway.



Kemp was jailed for about 14 hours before he was arraigned and freed on his own recognizance. Kemp's employer fired him for missing a shift, the lawsuit alleges.



Eugene lawyer Lauren C. Regan defended Kemp, obtaining the police videotape as part of discovery. In December 2009, Lane County Circuit Judge Ted Carp acquitted Kemp of all charges.



Regan filed a lawsuit on Kemp's behalf Monday in Eugene's U.S. District Court. The complaint accuses the city and the three police officers of wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution, conspiracy to commit civil rights violations, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.



The Eugene Police Department had not yet been served with papers and, as a standing policy, does not comment on pending litigation, said spokeswoman Jenna B. McCulley. She noted that the department's internal affairs division investigated a complaint by Kemp, but found his allegations unfounded.







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