A 66-year-old Kentucky man with dementia plans to file a lawsuit against the city of Danville after he was violently arrested after being separated from his wife during a shopping trip to Walmart last October.
The case endured months of legal delays as prosecutors continued to pursue a guilty plea on public intoxication and multiple other charges, including trespassing and shoplifting, despite the aggressive actions of the officers.
Since then, all charges against John Hardwick have been dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be refiled or brought again in court. He won’t be banned from Walmart as he would have been under conditions sought by prosecutors.
Surveillance footage circulating online shows an officer punching Hardwick six times, while separately released bodycam video shows him pleading for help before he was jailed—charged with public intoxication and shoplifting after trying to buy two packs of beer without ID.
Lacking proof of his age, Hardwick was escorted to the service counter by a cashier. According to his family, this is when he became confused, mistakenly going behind the counter and placing a beer into his cart alongside the items he had already purchased.
Surveillance footage revealed Hardwick moving the booze from his cart to the counter multiple times while speaking with loss prevention officers, escalating the situation. However, Hardwick’s attorney, Ephraim Helton, noted that he suffers from dementia, and he and his wife, Cindy, often split up during their trips to Walmart.
Helton pointed out that during the confrontation, there was “no effort to leave Walmart, there’s no effort to run with this,” he said, adding that Hardwick never threw his arms up or caused a scene. “He’s following all of the directions of loss prevention.”
Meanwhile, the story went viral on social media after being highlighted by The Civil Rights Lawyer, West Virginia attorney John H. Bryan’s popular YouTube channel known for documenting cases of police misconduct, particularly incidents involving excessive force. In this case, Hardwick, a dementia patient diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, was met with a response from police that appeared to disregard his mental condition roughly.
Helton has vowed to take a civil action to court within the next three weeks.
“Mr. Hardwick would get what he wanted real quick, and then he would check out. He was never asked for his ID, and after he checked out, he would go sit. There are two benches as you exited Walmart; he would go sit on those two benches,” Helton said.
This time, however, as his wife continued shopping, Hardwick found himself in a disagreement with an over-officious clerk who accused him of being intoxicated.
“But if the viewers just watch this video, there is no indices of impairment,” Helton explained.
Employees called over Danville police officers, who then took Hardwick to the ground, with Officer T.J. Godbey delivering several punches.
“Go to the ground,” Godbey demands while pushing the elderly man.
“Go to the ground! Go to the ground! Go to the ground! Put your hands behind your back,” the police officer says while punching Hardwick in the back. “Do it now, or you’re going to get Tased!”
Helton argued that the use of force was excessive and cited the 2020 police custody death of George Floyd, who begged for his life as Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nine minutes — killing Floyd and leading to Chauvin’s murder conviction.
“You see, T.J. Godbey pulled his cuffs out; rush him. One officer does what they call a leg whip to bring him down; the other officer tries to put him in a chokehold, which every law enforcement officer knows, and every police department in this country prohibits chokeholds after the tragedy that happened with George Floyd,” said Helton.
The Danville Police Department told local station Fox 56 that “Danville Police Officers were requested to assist Walmart loss prevention with an uncooperative and intoxicated shoplifter, who had become agitated when Walmart refused to let him purchase two cases of alcohol and other merchandise. After a store employee placed the alcohol behind a register, the suspect walked behind the register and took possession of the unpaid alcohol and merchandise and attempted to leave the store.”
