Posted on 05/21/2024 10:52:37 AM PDT by Red Badger
At approximately 5:30 a.m. on a bleak and drizzly Friday in downtown Louisville, Ky., a black SUV pulled away from the four-story AC Hotel on East Market Street. Its destination: Valhalla Golf Club, about 17 miles due east. At the wheel was an ESPN production runner who was shuttling four on-air personalities — reporter Jeff Darlington; analyst and former U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy; and play-by-play announcers Dave Fleming and Bob Wischusen — to the property to cover the 106th PGA Championship. Most of what is typically a 30-minute drive was traffic-free, but that changed as the SUV neared the club. Shelbyville Road, the main byway into and out of Valhalla, was backed up on account of a police investigation related to a pedestrian fatality.
To circumvent the snarl, the ESPN runner diverted the SUV onto less cluttered back roads and soon came upon a police officer patrolling an intersection about a third of a mile from the club entrance. When the ESPN crew identified themselves and showed their parking credential, the officer let them through. As they neared the entrance, though, they were held up again, this time by a bus just in front of the gate. As they waited for the bus to clear, a Lexus SUV — demarked as a PGA Championship courtesy vehicle — pulled up in the westbound lane next to them.
“And that,” Wischusen told me in a phone interview Saturday evening, “was when the confrontation began.”
The confrontation — which by now you’ve undoubtedly read, heard and/or meme’d about — involved the world’s top-ranked male golfer, Scottie Scheffler, and a detective with the Louisville Metro Police Department named Bryan Gillis. In short: After Scheffler pulled into the westbound lane, Gillis, who was directing traffic, stopped Scheffler and gave him instructions. But, according to Gillis, Scheffler “refused to comply and accelerated forward, dragging (him) to the ground.” In a statement Friday, Scheffler said that he had been “proceeding as directed” and that the incident resulted from a “big misunderstanding of what I thought I was being asked to do.” Scheffler was arrested and taken to the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections, where he was charged with three driving-related misdemeanors and second-degree assault of a police offer, which is a felony.
The bombshell arrest news was broken by Darlington, who had witnessed much of what had transpired. At 6:35 a.m., Darlington tweeted: “World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler has been detained by police in handcuffs after a misunderstanding with traffic flow led to his attempt to drive past a police officer into Valhalla Golf Club. The police officer attempted to attach himself to Scheffler’s car, and Scheffler then stopped his vehicle at the entrance to Valhalla. The police officer then began to scream at Scheffler to get out of the car. When Scheffler exited the vehicle, the officer shoved Scheffler against the car and immediately placed him in handcuffs. He is now being detained in the back of a police car.”
Forty-five minutes later, Darlington tweeted a surreal video — which as of this writing has been viewed nearly 20 million times — of two officers leading the reigning Masters champion toward a police car in handcuffs. “He’s going to jail,” an officer says to Darlington in the video, “and there ain’t nothing you can do about it.” Later that morning, Darlington cemented his status as the star witness to the most stunning sports story of the year, maybe the decade, when he reported his account of the mind-bending events on SportsCenter.
Darlington, though, wasn’t the only eyewitness. His four commuting mates had also been at the scene, watching on from the interior of the SUV. On Saturday, Wischusen, who has not yet publicly shared his version of what led to the arrest, spoke to GOLF.com about what he saw and heard. His account corroborates Darlington’s, but Wischusen also provided some new details.
As Scheffler pulled up to the left of ESPN’s vehicle, Wischusen said he and his ESPN colleagues could not see who was at the wheel. Moments later, a police officer “kind of jumped in front” of what the ESPN crew would later learn was a Lexus driven by Scheffler. “He was pretty, you know, enthusiastic, let’s say,” Wischusen said of Officer Gillis. Wischusen said Gillis beamed his flashlight up and down Scheffler’s car and yelled at him with words to the effect of: “Whoa, whoa, whoa, who are you? Where are you going? Get back in line. You’re not allowed to come through here.”
Wischusen said he couldn’t hear any of what Scheffler said to Gillis but that Gillis was “scolding” Scheffler for passing the ESPN vehicle on the left. Wischusen said because Gillis and his fellow officers were in yellow reflective jackets, it was unclear to Wischusen and his colleagues whether they were police or tournament security.
After Scheffler and the officer’s interaction, Wischusen said Scheffler began to pull away. As Darlington described it, at this point Gillis “attached himself” to the car. As Gillis, whose body camera was not activated during the incident, described it, he was “dragged” to the ground by Scheffler’s car, which led to “pain, swelling and abrasions to left wrist and knee” and damaging his pants “beyond repair.”
Here’s how Wischusen recalls that moment: “When [Scheffler] drove past him, the cop got very angry pursuing the car. … My impression was he was kind of running alongside chasing the car, and maybe he tripped and fell. I mean, there was kind of an outcropping or median, you know, by the front gate. And keep in mind, it was raining. It was 6 o’clock in the morning. It was dark.”
Asked about Darlington’s characterization of the officer “attaching” himself to the car, Wischusen said, “I could see him stumble, but I did not have a very clear view of exactly how you want to categorize his contact with the car.”
Wischusen said Scheffler was moving at a relatively slow speed — “the speed that you would drive a car if you were pulling up to the front gate of a place,” he said — and before pulling over had driven approximately the 10 or so yards that Darlington had estimated.
When Scheffler stopped the car, Wischusen said Gillis was visibly upset. “He runs up to the driver’s side, and with the butt end of his flashlight starts screaming, you know, ‘Get out of the car, get out of the car’ — banging on the window — ‘shut the engine off, get out of the car. I’m a police officer.’”
The driver “peacefully” exited the car, Wischusen said, at which point the officer “put him up against the car and put him in handcuffs.” Said Wischusen: “That was when we realized — you know, all the way up until then we’re like, oh my God, whoever is in this car, there’s about to be an arrest of some sort. And then it was, ‘Oh my God, it’s Scottie Scheffler.”
Recognizing the gravity and magnitude of the moment, Darlington immediately switched into reporter mode and exited the SUV to document what was happening. Wischusen, Ogilvy, Fleming and their driver hung back in the vehicle. “I’m not an investigative reporter, right?” Wischusen said. “I thought the exact right thing to do is just stay in the car, let Jeff go out and ask questions and let the situation play out, and certainly not insert ourselves or all of a sudden try to, you know, to have any role to play.”
The mood in the back of the SUV as the passengers watched this unfathomable scene playing out in front of them? Shock, Wischusen said. “Exactly what you would imagine,” he said. “The number one player in the world just got arrested trying to go into the gate at the golf course. I mean, you know, like, what just happened? Did we really just see what we just saw?”
Darlington did not return to the SUV. He wanted to document as much of the scene as he could, Wischusen said, so the others went through the gate and to the TV compound without him. By the time they arrived, the ESPN production team was aware of what had happened and already thinking about how to cover arguably the wildest story in major-championship history. With tee times pushed back on account of the traffic delays, ESPN’s producers had a bit of time to play with before players descended on the course to complete their first rounds — but not much time. The most pressing matter, though, was getting clarity on Scheffler’s status.
“In a very fast transition, we went from an operation of people there to call a sporting event to a news gathering, a news reporting operation,” Wischusen said. “And then at one point we became both. A half-hour after we were on site, we still didn’t know when Scottie Scheffler was going to be processed, bailed out. Was he going to withdraw? Was he going to be sitting in jail? Would he miss his tee time? Oh, wait a minute — we found out he’s coming back. So, we were basically wearing both hats at the same time. How can we be the news reporting organization that covers the Scottie Scheffler story while at the same time documenting the golf tournament that’s now underway, where there are a dozen groups out on the golf course playing golf? It’s still kind of our job to tell people and show what’s going on in the PGA. And for about 14 consecutive hours we wore both hats.”
Scheffler is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday morning in Louisville; it’s unclear whether he will appear in court in person. Scheffler’s attorney, Steve Romines, told GOLF.com that he and his team intend to enter a “not guilty” plea on all the charges. Romines said he does not expect a same-day decision from the judge. “More likely it will be a matter of days,” he said, at which point “either the judge will dismiss the charges, or we’ll go to trial.”
Wischusen said that as of Friday evening, as far as he knew, none of the ESPN crew who witnessed the arrest had been contacted by legal teams from either side. If they do reach out, Wischusen said, “I would think they’d probably go to Jeff first, because (a) our version of the events are basically identical, and (b) he had more information than any one of us. He hopped out of the car and actually documented further what was happening and asked some questions and shot the video. My own speculation is that if neither side has contacted any of us, to me, that tells me that both sides are going to say this never should have happened. Let’s just all agree to let bygones be bygones. Cooler heads prevail.”
In an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg was asked whether the charges against Scheffler would be dismissed. “Right now,” the mayor said, “the case is in the hands of our county attorney, and we’ll let the legal process play out.”
That’s some serious mob think
A quarter mile away from the accident, not "a tense crime scene".
In traffic.
ACKCHYUALLY, the gate Scheffler was at is well out of traffic.
You didn't look at the PDF map I posted, nor did you look a the Goolag satellite map.
You're just shooting from the lip.
We're surprised you haven't slunk away in embarrassment.
Sounds like the cop got his feelings hurt and wanted to demonstrate who was the boss.
~~~~~
When a police officer is controlling traffic he IS the boss. You do what he says. If you don’t, and feel the need to argue or do something else then it’s the cop’s job to arrest you.
There are places to argue with police. They’re called courtrooms.
There are places for bad cops. They’re called prisons.
I am going with Scottie thought they were event security.
Over zealous reaction by this officer!
AND-—THE COP DID NOT HAVE HIS ‘BODY CAMERA’ on————
Excuse me, but is English your first language, or with all due respect are you impaired? lol
This reads like you first wrote it in Japanese then went to some online translation site and copied and pasted the translation.
Not trying to be mean, just that I didn’t know what I was reading, and thought that I was having a stroke.
Is English my first language?
The knee jerk cop hate here is such that people can’t see that Scheffler has got to be sorry he didn’t just stop like the cop said and ended up in jail look how he did in the tournament. The word is that he drove on the median. Sorry that is not a misunderstanding. A cop is not going to direct anyone to drive on a median
I am a high school English teacher with both an applied science and an English degree taught to speak by Dominican nuns in the suburbs of New York by 3rd generation Irish. A combat veteran officer of the us military. English is my first language, German is my second, French third and right now I have to speak Spanish to the people here near our used to be border
Your mob think insults have no power here
“ I am going with Scottie thought they were event security.”
Did he say this?
First on CNN: Top police officials privately expressed charges against golfer Scottie Scheffler should be reduced - source
By Gabe Cohen, CNN
Updated 4:16 PM EDT, Wed May 22, 2024
High ranking police officials in Louisville, Kentucky, have privately voiced concerns that the felony charge against world No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler – who reportedly tried to drive around the scene of a fatal crash – is excessive, a source familiar with the discussions told CNN.
During a recent meeting, multiple Louisville police officials discussed the charges against Scheffler, and the group agreed that the felony charge seems excessive given the details of the case, according to the source with firsthand knowledge of the meeting.
Louisville police will hold a news conference Thursday to address the case and are expected to release additional video of the arrest from a traffic pole camera. It is unclear if the initial encounter between Scheffler and the detective was captured on video.
Louisville Councilmember Anthony Piagentini, who represents the district where Scheffler was arrested, told CNN he believes the case is being overcharged.
“I think the charges should either be dropped entirely or at least be dropped down to a very, very tiny misdemeanor,” Piagentini said. “I don’t know every piece of evidence, but I know enough to say the officer was trying to do his job, Mr. Scheffler was trying to do his job, and an unfortunate circumstance happened.”
They are afraid of losing the PGA Tour and all that tourist money.......................
Therefore you should stay far away from attempting to analyze or critique law enforcement events and or crime scenes.
I’m not analyzing nor critiquing anything And on a public forum like this I don’t need credentials I was answering a specific personal nasty intrusive judgemental question
I am putting a story together. What was the story here. From what they tell us he was up on the median, the cop says he was driving after he was told not to and pulled the cop over to the ground hurting him. He says it was a misunderstanding. I imagine he could have been emotional and impatient on the way to an early tee time that he wished he had qualified for a later one
Whatever did happen, I imagine he is sorry he didn’t just stop the car and wait
It could have been a silly power mad cop but he’s still in charge of traffic according to the law. Proving that after the Situation is a lot easier if you haven’t first been hauled off. I imagine that if I as first responder - which I have been as a medic- I would not have known nor cared that scheffler was scheffler. I’ve had to deal with many celebs. They don’t get to move ahead in a scene based on what they determine
Maybe the cops should have got the commissioner in on the scene, carved out a lathe for the golfers, there prob wasn’t time, but looking back, as it is the biggest draw of the year and this is going to be a mess for them.
The sponsors will swoop in and fix all this we may never know what happened. We don’t even know if they’re lying about the body camera being off. We don’t know that for sure.
The amount of money involved with Scheffler is so huge we’ll never really know what happened.
I just think he’s got to be sorry he didn’t stop. Dictator cop or not.
The cop said he was “Knocked down and drug by the vehicle”.
This is a huge embarrassment for the city. Where are the images of the cops injuries? There were people and cops everywhere. Where are the witness statements supporting the cop being, “Knocked down and drug by the vehicle”?
If injuries existed, I would guess the city could not post them quick enough. Where are they? Since the cop also broke policy having his body cam off, where are all the witness statements supporting the cops version of events?
My liberal family and friends never want to consider that something might or might not be so if they haven’t seen it on the TV. So I get the question
Here’s the possibilities (that have not been on TV- though I am allowing for the notion that the media could be not telling is everything or even lying…duh)
The cop may very well be over zealous. He could have even seen in the rain in the dark that it was scheffler and he was out to get him. I find this unlikely. My opinion.
The cop was maintaining integrity of the scene dark, rainy, Saturday of the PGA, angry impatient people everywhere clamoring at 0 dark thirty to get into general admission (18th hole) for a tournament for which they’ve had tickets for four years, mad that it was raining wanting to drive over the median
Or scheduled was told to drive up on the median because he is a golfer - by a cop who didn’t communicate with the arresting cop up ahead that scheduler was allowed to go through and drive not on the road but on the median- very unlikely
Sheffler was told by the arresting cop to go ahead and was then double crossed by the same cop. No
Scheffler misunderstood in the confusion that the cop wanted him to stop. No
If I’m around a lot of cops trying to figure out what happened up the road, in this case, a fatality, I am never going to misunderstand and plow through going off road. It will land me in jail
He was told, he misunderstood or he took liberty
In any case whether the cop was 100% wrong or right the guy had to spend a few minutes in jail waiting for the sponsor to come bail him out. He did not want to call his wife with this news but he did. He did not want this attention but now has it. It surrounds the PGA now for home. Won’t go away.
But the purse was $20000000.00. The amount of money and corporate power overwhelming the local politics and law enforcement is tremendous.
They can do away with any footage embarrassing to scheduled in about 5 minutes
If scheffler was following directions from the cops and he didn’t drive on the median and the cops really had no camera on then those details will come out and exonerate him. If he didn’t drive on the median and knock over the cop and the cop just wanted to arrest Scheffler for the heck of it. It will come out. I doubt that’s the case. It would have come out by now
My liberal family and friends never want to consider that something might or might not be so if they haven’t seen it on the TV. So I get the question
Here’s the possibilities (that have not been on TV- though I am allowing for the notion that the media could be not telling is everything or even lying…duh)
The cop may very well be over zealous. He could have even seen in the rain in the dark that it was scheffler and he was out to get him. I find this unlikely. My opinion.
The cop was maintaining integrity of the scene dark, rainy, Saturday of the PGA, angry impatient people everywhere clamoring at 0 dark thirty to get into general admission (18th hole) for a tournament for which they’ve had tickets for four years, mad that it was raining all wanting to drive over the median as well
Or scheffler was told to drive up on the median because he is a golfer - by a cop who didn’t communicate with the arresting cop up ahead that scheduler was allowed to go through and drive not on the road but on the median- very unlikely
Sheffler was told by the arresting cop to go ahead and was then double crossed by the same cop. No. Doubt that.
Scheffler misunderstood in the confusion that the cop wanted him to stop. Nope.
If I’m around a lot of cops trying to figure out what happened up the road, in this case, a fatality, I am never going to misunderstand and plow through going off road. It will end badly
scheffler was told, he misunderstood or he took liberty
In any case whether the cop was 100% wrong or right scheffler had to spend a few minutes in jail waiting for the sponsor to come bail him out. He did not want to call his wife with this news but he did. He did not want this attention but now has it. It surrounds the PGA now for him. Won’t go away.
But the purse was $20,000,000.00. The amount of money and corporate power overwhelming the local politics and law enforcement is tremendous.
They can do away with any footage embarrassing to scheffler in about 5 minutes, not that this is the case.
If scheffler was following directions from the cops and he didn’t drive on the median and the cops really had no camera on then those details will come out and exonerate scheffler. If he didn’t drive on the median and knock over the cop and the cop just wanted to arrest Scheffler for the heck of it. It will come out. I doubt that’s the case. It would have come out by now
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