Kevin Lukart was a 30-year-old
police officer in Apollo, Pennsylvania when he exposed
himself to a 17-year-old girl while on duty in 2000.
He was a police officer in
Braddock, Pennsylvania when he was caught in the above 2007 video punching a
handcuffed suspect twice before shoving him into the back of a squad
car.
And he was a police officer in
Point Marion, Pennsylvania when he arrested a man earlier this year on
wiretapping charges for video recording him yelling at a man in a wheelchair.
Point Marion Kevin Lukart who
has been fired from at least five police departments for misconduct
So odds are, the lawsuit filed
against him this week stemming from the false wiretapping charge won’t have
much of an impact on his career.
But that’s not stopping
Gregory Rizer for moving forward with his ACLU-assisted suit against Lukart,
who has a long history of police misconduct in Pennsylvania.
Gregory Rizer, who was falsely
arrested on wiretapping charges, is now suing the Point Marion Police
Department
Rizer was arrested on
wiretapping charges on January 5. His case was dismissed on February 22. His
phone was not returned until a month later.
And when it was, the SIM card was missing, so Rizer said he was unable to access
the video.
“He’s been dismissed from at
least five police departments,” Rizer said in a telephone interview with Photography
is Not a Crime Friday morning.
“It just goes on and on.”
Lukart is apparently the
Pennsylvania equivalent of German Bosque,
the South Florida cop who has been fired six times and is currently making
$60,000 a year for doing nothing more than sitting at home.
It all started on January 3
when Rizer was visiting a friend who happens to be wheelchair-bound.
Lukart suddenly pounded on the
door, looking for the man’s cousin, who had outrun him in a previous incident.
“He was trying to get
information but the way he was doing it was like Robocop,” Rizer said. “He was
getting in my friend’s face. I walked to the other side of the room and started
videotaping.”
When Lukart noticed Rizer
recording, he stormed up to him, handcuffed him and threw him in the back of
the squad car, driving him to the police station.
At the time, Lukart had no
idea about the laws regarding the recording of police in public, so he believed
he had committed a crime.
“He said give me your phone,
you are breaking the wiretapping law,” Rizer said.
He then made Rizer sign a
statement acknowledging that he had broken the law. Rizer signed it, stating he
did not know it was against the law.
Lukart then released Rizer but
did not return his phone.
When Rizer got home, he began
conducting research on the internet, not only learning that he had not
broken the law, but that Lukart had quite a sordid history.
“I took it up with the mayor
to let him know what type of person (Lukart) was,” Rizer said. “I just wanted
to get my phone back.”
But Mayor Carl Ables is
apparently good friends
with Lukart, informing the cop of Rizer’s visit.
Two days later, Lukart started
banging on Rizer’s door accompanied by the police chief to re-arrest him on the
wiretapping charge. This time, Rizer spent several hours in jail before bonding
out.
Attorney Glen Downey of the
ACLU filed the lawsuit in Rizer’s behalf Thursday.