Georgia Police Tried To Arrest a Paralyzed Man for Kicking Down a Woman's Door and Assaulting Her
The woman has since recanted her allegations.
Last month, police officers in College Park, Georgia detained Charles Read for felony assault charges, alleging that he kicked down his ex-girlfriend's door and attempted to strangle her. The only problem? Read is paraplegic—and has been for more than 20 years. Despite the obvious discrepancy, police officers still handcuffed Read and tried to take him to jail, even as the same officers seemed unsure if it was physically possible for him to have committed the crime in the first place.
"If she made a false report, that's going to be on her . . . It's a warrant now. I have to go ahead and take you in. So now that's gonna be up to you and the courts and your lawyers and her to establish your innocence," Officer Mark Belotte told Read in body camera footage obtained by Reason. "So at this point, she says you kicked down her door. It don't look like you could kick anything, no offense, at this point in time."
In June 2024, a woman named Katherine Jensen called police and reported that Read, whom she claimed she had broken up with a few days prior, had come to her house, kicked down her door, choked her, and attempted to steal her car keys. Afterward, he left on foot. In body camera footage obtained by Reason, Jensen told police that she didn't want to press charges. Still, officers obtained an arrest warrant for Read.
It's unclear why it took police so long to detain Read, who said he had been in contact with police for more than a month before coming to the station.
When Read arrived at the police station on March 20, Officer Mark Belotte—the same one who originally responded to Jensen's call in June—read Read his Miranda rights and began questioning him. Belotte asked if Read knew anyone named "Katherine Elizabeth Jensen," and Read replied that he had an old ex-girlfriend "from like 20 years ago," with that first and middle name, but not that last name. He also asked how long Read had been in his wheelchair, and Read said he had been paralyzed since he was 18.
"According to Ms. Jensen, on this date, you forcefully entered her home and attacked her," Belotte said.
"I have absolutely no idea who that is. Yeah, I certainly didn't force my way into anybody's house," Read replied.
As the conversation went on, Read insisted that he had no idea why he was being accused of forcibly entering Jensen's home and strangling her, pointing out that he had been paralyzed for the past several decades and was married, not Jensen's recent ex-boyfriend. Still, Belotte told Read that he was being arrested. "This is crazy to me . . . Is this a joke?" Read said as Belotte handcuffed him.
Seconds after being handcuffed, Read—who had told Belotte he had limited muscle control—fell out of his wheelchair and onto the floor, where officers left him for more than three and a half minutes. When Belotte later told another officer about this incident, footage captures the other officer assuming Read faked the fall: "it's a ruse, man, it's an obvious attempt not to go to jail," he said.
Still, a third officer expressed misgivings about Read's arrest. "We're gonna do our due diligence, because if you're paralyzed, somebody must have made a mistake," the officer said to Read. Later, that officer told Belotte that Read's legs looked similar to the limbs of some of his own family members who were paralyzed, indicating that Read wasn't lying about having been paralyzed for decades. "I would suggest calling the district attorney's office, let them know what you got," the officer told Belotte, who interjected, "Because now it's looking like she might have made a false report."
Police may have had more reason to doubt the veracity of Jensen's claims had they conducted a brief internet search. Last year, Jensen was criminally charged after she made false allegations that Airbnb guests stole her property.
But even so, Belotte insisted that Read would have to go to jail, and that it would be up to him to come up with the documentation proving his innocence at a later court hearing. Read, in addition to insisting he was innocent, argued with officers that his complex medical needs made taking him to the Fulton County jail particularly dangerous for his health. After a lengthy back and forth, Read convinced officers to let him go on the promise that he would eventually turn himself in. But even though he could leave, he still had a felony arrest warrant out against him.
In an email sent this week to the College Park Police Department obtained by Reason, Jensen recanted her allegations. "It has been brought to my attention that my mental state and physical trauma in that moment worked to confuse me into providing information that needs to be edited," she wrote. "Will you please contact me at your earliest convenience so I can edit the information in the report and clear the name of an [sic] innocent man." Still, police refused to revoke the warrant.
Andrew Fleischman, Read's attorney, tells Reason that, while it was reasonable for police to critically examine whether Read could have committed the crime—say, if he had become paralyzed in the several months between the alleged incident and the detainment—it was their lack of curiosity about his claims of obvious innocence that troubled him.
"It's not so much that they should have just said, 'Oh, he didn't do it.' But they should have been like: 'Let's not get the warrant yet. Let's do some more investigation because I'm not sure.' That's really what was missing," Fleischman says. "And when courts look at probable cause, part of a police officer's duty is not just to find probable cause, but also to dispel suspicion of a crime. That's part of what they're supposed to do. And to do it in a reasonably prompt manner."
Fleischman tells Reason that police informed him the warrant was dismissed on Friday.
