Clearfield police officer receives backlash after the arrest of a disabled man

CLEARFIELD, Utah — Clearfield Police are clearing up what happened when a police officer arrested a Special Olympic medalist back in July.

A popular YouTube channel, The Civil Rights Lawyer, posted body cam footage with analysis of the encounter two days ago. Since then, it’s racked up hundreds of thousands of views and drawn attention to the arrest. 

Special Olympic medalist Shawn Nicholas was walking home around 3 a.m. when Clearfield officer Zachary Fratto trailed him.  According to the footage, Fratto told Nicholas it was weird that he was in the parking lot this late at night. He told Nicholas that he was jaywalking and needed to show ID.

When he refused, he was asked to put his hands behind his back. During the arrest, Nicholas kept saying “I didn’t do nothing.” 

Clearfield PD released a statement that Fratto did not recognize that Nicholas had disabilities. They say he interpreted Nicholas’ behavior as intoxication and mistakenly applied the jaywalking statute. Fratto has since received more training on how to handle situations like this. 

Former police chiefs react to the incident

What do two former Utah police chiefs in Utah have to say about the video and reaction?

Retired Deputy Chief of Unified Police Department Chris Bertram believes continual education is important for officers to learn how to read different personalities.

“And that becomes more of an education for the officers to understand different disabilities and different mental illnesses,” Bertram said. 

Meanwhile, former Salt Lake Police Chief Chris Burbank doesn’t think the officer was held accountable for the way he treated Nicholas.

“This is an abuse of authority and it is a violation of this individual’s civil rights,” Burbank said. “If that’s not a dismissible offense, I don’t know what is.” 

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