Police Misconduct — The Worst Case in June

Over at Cato’s Police Misconduct web site, we have identified the worst case for June. It goes to the police department in Carrollton, Kentucky.


Adam Horine was a homeless person who was arrested for some petty offense. Horine then appeared before Judge Elizabeth Chandler to determine whether he wanted to go to trial, or plead guilty to the charges. Horine said he wanted to represent himself in the case and he gave the judge some rambling answers to her questions. Horine indicated that he had problems and did not seem angry when the judge ordered that he be sent to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.


This is when things took a bizzare turn. Instead of following the judge’s order, the local police chief, Michael Willhoite, had one of his deputies put Horine, against his wishes, on a 28 hour bus ride to Florida. No one accompanied Horine on the bus and no one was expected to meet him when the bus trip ended in Florida. The idea seemed to be to push their problem prisoner on someone else. (One wonders whether that was the first time that this “police technique” was used.)


Adding insult to injury, the police would later charge Horine with a new crime, “escape from custody” — even though the police themselves purchased the bus ticket and placed the mentally distressed Horine on the bus.