A federal judge sentenced Wednesday two former Louisville Metro Police detectives who threw slushies and drinks from unmarked squad cars at residents in the West End. One of the detectives was also sentenced in an unrelated cyberstalking case.
Bryan Andrew Wilson and Curt Flynn had each pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to violate the civil rights of pedestrians through arbitrary use of force, a felony. Wilson also pleaded guilty to cyberstalking charges after using data software made available to him while he was an officer to hack the Snapchat accounts of several women to steal explicit material of them then use it against them.
Flynn was sentenced to three months in prison, while Wilson was given 30 months in prison for his charges. The pair were each also sentenced to three years supervised release and 120 hours of community service.
Wilson, 36, had faced a combined maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $500,000 fine on both cases. Flynn, 40, had faced up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
More headlines:BETWEEN THE LINES: A Courier Journal investigation into literacy among Kentucky kids
Wilson and Flynn were detectives in the Ninth Mobile Division from August 2018 through September 2019 when the U.S. Department of Justice said they threw large beverages, including the container, at unnamed civilians walking in the predominantly Black neighborhoods of the West End.
The two — joined by others who were not named by the DOJ — threw the drinks while dressed in LMPD uniforms and riding in unmarked police vehicles. They would bring the beverages into their cars, identify a target and then drive closer to the person before throwing the drinks after announcing on the police radio that “someone was thirsty,” or “thirsty fam,” according to federal prosecutors.
After throwing the beverage, the driver of the LMPD vehicle would flee the scene. On many occasions, civilians were hit with the beverage, and in at least one instance, a person was knocked down after being hit, according to the DOJ.
The DOJ’s news release that announced the guilty pleas earlier this year said the assaults were also recorded either by the detectives or others participating, “sometimes from inside the car from which the beverage was thrown, and sometimes from an LMPD car following closely behind the car from which the beverage was thrown.”
Wilson would then show the videos to other members of LMPD’s Ninth Mobile Division, a citywide violent crime unit that was created in 2015 and came under scrutiny amid several lawsuits alleging it pulled over Black drivers for minor violations (such as a wide turn that officers accused teenager Tae-Ahn Lea of making in 2018) and searched — with little to no evidence — for weapons and drugs.
“The conduct Bryan Wilson, Curt Flynn and others engaged in, while acting under color of law, was deliberative and malicious, and it shocked the conscience,” federal prosecutors wrote in court documents.
L. Scott Miller, Flynn’s attorney, had asked for three years of probation, noting in court filings that Flynn “served with distinction” in the Air Force for about 20 years, including two tours of duty in Kyrgyzstan and Iraq, before joining the Air National Guard and then LMPD. Flynn’s wife, Jade, also testified and wrote a letter describing the ex-detective as “a devoted husband” and father of three children.
“Flynn’s conduct here was inexcusable, but it should not completely overlook the years of diligent service he completed,” Miller wrote in a memo filed ahead of the sentencing hearing. “He has always provided for his family, cared for his children, and served his community. As … letters from service members who knew Flynn personally attest, Flynn has made mistakes but can still have a positive effect on others including his family and community.”
LMPD Chief Erika Shields said earlier this year she would initiate an internal investigation to determine how much other officers knew about and how involved they were in drink-throwing incidents.
“I want to make it clear to everyone, the actions of former Detectives Flynn and Wilson are reprehensible, sickening, and do not reflect the core values of LMPD,” Shields said in June. “Their behavior was demoralizing and dehumanizing to the victims. On behalf of this agency, I wish to express my sincere apologies to those affected. This type of behavior will not be tolerated. We owe our community better and this is not representative of the good work the men and women of LMPD strive for every day.”
The drink-throwing incidents first became public in June 2021, when Shields told Metro Council members the FBI was investigating the behavior, calling it “another black eye to the department.”
Shields said at the time that the officers had been reassigned to desk duty as the federal investigation was underway. The chief later said Flynn, who joined LMPD in 2010, resigned from the department after his guilty plea in federal court and that Wilson, who joined LMPD in 2011, had resigned in July 2020 due to a separate criminal investigation.
While court documents only referred to victims as “John Does and Jane Does,” Jefferson Circuit Judge Jessica Green offered more context in 2021, when she was the Metro Council representative for the various West End neighborhoods included in District 1.
“I am very disturbed about the idea of narcotics detectives throwing snowcones on homeless Black people in West Louisville,” Green previously said. “I hope nobody makes excuses for that kind of behavior.”
Using law enforcement access to cyberstalk
In the separate case, Wilson pleaded guilty and admitted to stealing compromising photos and videos of at least six female victims, then sending them text messages in which he threatened to publish them unless they sent more material to him, according to the federal government.
He was able to steal the photos by abusing his powers and using the powerful data-combining software, Accurint – which he was given access to while still working for the department. The cyberstalking happened between September and October 2020, though he resigned from the department in June of that year due to the slushie-throwing investigation.
More than the threats, a federal court document states that Wilson did publish some of the explicit material and sent insulting messages to the victims.
“Wilson caused his victims untold psychological trauma, not only by extorting them and publishing their explicit photographs and videos online, but also by demeaning and insulting them during his text exchanges, calling them sluts, whores, and b****es,” the document states.
In one case, a victim almost lost her job after Wilson sent her boss explicit content of her, the document states.
Louisville police officers in court:These are the ex-LMPD officers charged by feds with unlawful force
While the DOJ has conducted a wide-ranging “pattern-or-practice” investigation into LMPD, the federal government has also charged several other now-former officers with civil rights offenses related to the beating of a kneeling, unarmed protester and the shooting of pepperballs at the niece of David McAtee before police and National Guard members fatally shot the West End barbecue stand owner in June 2020.
In addition, the DOJ announced indictments in August against four ex-LMPD personnel accused of lying on the drug-related search warrant or firing bullets that went into a neighboring apartment during the raid at Breonna Taylor’s home that killed the 26-year-old Black woman in March 2020.
Kelly Hanna Goodlett, one of the former detectives indicted in August who has pleaded guilty to helping falsify an affidavit used to search Taylor’s apartment, had also been named, but not charged, in the federal investigation into Flynn and Wilson throwing drinks at residents.
Reporter Krista Johnson contributed to this story. Reach Billy Kobin at [email protected]
