George Henderson, a 61-year-old Black man with Alzheimer’s disease, disappeared from his Tennessee home early last month, prompting local police to issue a Silver Alert for the man who spent almost three decades in the U.S. Army where he served in six overseas deployments, receiving head injuries and PTSD as a result.
The retired master sergeant ended up beaten unconscious by a Kentucky cop who accused him of being under the influence of cocaine and arrested him on five criminal charges that remain pending despite a lack of evidence to support those charges.
Guthrie police said they were only acting on their “training and departmental policy” when they punched the elderly man, who expressed confusion and incoherence but not violence or aggression to the cop, according to body camera footage.
Footage from Jacob Pritchett’s body camera also shows the cop accusing Henderson of having “very, very, very tiny, pinpointed” eyes before accusing him of having cocaine in his nose.
But cocaine is known for causing eyes to become dilated, according to a “fact sheet” prepared by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the complete opposite of pinpointed eyes, an important detail which evidently was not part of Pritchett’s training.
The video also shows Pritchett ordering Henderson to “let go of my hand, godd*mnit” after Henderson was rendered unconscious face-down on the floor but both the cop’s hands remained visible and free of Henderson’s grasp. Pritchett also accused Henderson of biting his hand during the struggle, but that is not evident in the video.
It was only after paramedics arrived to treat Henderson for the laceration he received behind his right ear that Guthrie police learned that Henderson was the subject of a Silver Alert hours earlier out of neighboring Tennessee.
“It was not dispatched to our dispatch,” explained Guthrie Police Chief Dean Blumel in a statement to local media.
“Based on the information Officer Pritchett had that was available to him, and the circumstances that were presented during the interaction, Officer Pritchett handled the matter consistent with his training and departmental policy.”
But an attorney retained by Henderson’s family was critical of the violent response from Guthrie police and suggested he will probably be taking legal action.
“George is an honorable man who sacrificed his health in service to this country, and to see him treated with such horrible indignity at a time of vulnerability is an injustice for which people must be held accountable,” said Jeremy Stochaj, an attorney based out of Louisville, Kentucky.
Silver Alert
Henderson disappeared from his home in Clarksville around 2 p.m. on Dec. 6. The Silver Alert, which is a public notification system to share information about missing elderly people suffering from dementia and other mental disabilities, was issued at 4 p.m. by both the Clarksville Police Department and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations, according to Clarksville Now.
With temperatures dropping to 25 degrees that night, Henderson somehow ended up across state lines in Kentucky, where he was found 10 hours later in a gas station after the attendant called police to say Henderson attempted to get inside his parked car.
The attendant was under the impression Henderson was trying to steal his car, but it appears as if Henderson was simply confused because of his disabilities. When Pritchett arrived, Henderson appeared confused and incoherent but not dangerous or violent.
“I ain’t doing nothing, I ain’t trying to steal nothing,” Henderson told the officer while wearing two different shoes on his feet.
The cop then asked if he had any guns or knives as Henderson placed his hands inside his pockets, prompting the cop to grab one of his wrists and tell him to “take your hands out of your pockets.”
“I don’t have no guns,” Henderson said.
The cop then walked to the gas station attendant, who claimed that Henderson was trying to steal his car. He told the officer that Henderson had to pull him out of his car and assaulted him.
When the cop asked Henderson if he had been inside the attendant’s car, he did not provide a coherent response, which led the cop to believe he was under the influence of drugs instead of suffering from a mental disability that affects more than 10 percent of the population over the age of 65, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
“Do you take any kind of medication or something,” Pritchett asked Henderson. “Your pupils are very, very, very tiny, pinpointed. Can you look up in the air for me?”
“I don’t drink, I don’t (do) drugs,” Henderson said.
“Put you hands behind your back for me, you got cocaine in your nose,” Pritchett said.
“That’s a lie, That’s a lie,” responded Henderson as Pritchett grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground, where the elderly man ended up face-down on the floor with the cop on top of him.
The video shows the cop’s left hand holding his head down while punching him once on the back of his head with his right hand, rendering Henderson unconscious for about 30 seconds.
“Let go of my hand, godd*ammit! Put your hands behind your back!” the cop yelled while both his hands are clearly free of Henderson’s grasp.
Henderson was slapped with five charges that remain pending despite little evidence to back those charges, including theft by unlawful taking, public intoxication, resisting arrest, assault of a police officer, and possession of a controlled substance, although that substance is not specified in the report, according to Clarksville Now.
“George was incoherent, didn’t know his address, state, how he got there and had on two different shoes,” Pritchett wrote in his report, according to Clarksville Now. “While talking to George, I notice his pupils were very constricted and he had a white powder residue in his left nostril.”
Pritchett was hired by the Guthrie Police Department in September 2022, according to a Facebook post by the law enforcement agency, where he was described as a veteran who spent six years in the Army.
He then graduated from the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training’s (DOCJT) basic training academy in June 2023.
Henderson’s wife, Kimberly, praised the local police department in Tennessee for trying to help find her husband after he disappeared but was critical of the Guthrie Police Department.
“People need to know that Clarksville Police Department, especially Officers Joshua Spain and Jan Salcedo, but others as well, went above and beyond to provide support to our family during this crisis and vigorously searched for George,” she said in a statement to local media.
“Unfortunately, Guthrie Police Department was across state lines abusing George on a gas station floor. We are deeply upset that the system so miserably failed him in this time of need.”
