Indiana State Police Trooper Brian Hamilton was warned before: Stop proselytizing to people during traffic stops.
But a new lawsuit claims the trooper — who was sued once before for preaching on the job — didn’t learn his lesson the first time.
A complaint filed in federal court Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, on behalf of Wendy Pyle, accuses Hamilton of asking her whether “she had been saved” after pulling her over in Fayette County in January. Court documents claim Hamilton then told the woman about his church and gave her directions to it.
“Ms. Pyle was extremely uncomfortable with these questions,” the lawsuit says. “In order to hopefully end these inquiries Ms. Pyle indicated that she did attend a church and that she was saved.”
If this story sounds familiar, that’s because Hamilton has been sued before. The ACLU filed a similar lawsuit in 2014 when a woman named Ellen Bogan claimed Hamilton stopped her that August for an alleged traffic violation in Union County. After he handed her a warning ticket, she said, he asked her if she had a home church and whether she accepted Jesus Christ as her savior.
“I’m not affiliated with any church. I don’t go to church,” Bogan told IndyStar at the time. “I felt compelled to say I did, just because I had a state trooper standing at the passenger-side window. It was just weird.”
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