Less than one month after his Edison2 design team won the $5 million Automotive X-Prize for designing a car that travels more than 100 miles per gallon, Lynchburg (and former Charlottesville) developer Oliver Kuttner was pulled over by Lynchburg police on October 12 for driving with an expired registration. During the stop, Kuttner was also charged with obstruction of justice without the use of force, a Class One misdemeanor.
Now, a third party has made an allegation of officer misconduct concerning Kuttner’s treatment by the Lynchburg Police Department (LPD), according to Captain Todd Swisher.
"To my knowledge, we’ve not had any direct contact with him," says Swisher. "This allegation was actually made through a third party to a member of our city government." Multiple attempts to contact Kuttner this afternoon were unsuccessful.
Swisher says no formal complaint has been filed against the LPD, but the department has launched an internal investigation and, according to NBC29, has video and audio from the stop. Asked to elaborate on the obstruction charge, Swisher said the information will be provided during an upcoming court appearance. An arraignment hearing is set for October 26 at 1pm in Lynchburg General District Court.
C-VILLE asked Swisher whether the arresting officer used force in dealing with Kuttner. According to Swisher, that question is part of an internal investigation, and he could not comment further. According to the LPD’s 2009 annual report, a total of 75 incidents of LPD’s 6,400 arrests "resulted in a total of 112 separate applications of force by individual officers."
"This translates to officers using force in approximately 1.1 percent of all arrests," according to the report. "This percentage is consistent with 2008 data."