Man awarded $500K settlement after daring deputy to arrest him

By Nicole Comstock, Matthew Rodriguez

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    TEMECULA, California (KCAL, KCBS) — Riverside County paid a man nearly $500,000 after he dared a deputy to arrest him in 2022.

Riverside County Sheriff’s Department Deputy Robert Glaser responded to a senior living facility in Temecula after residents called a complaint about a belligerent man in the area. Gregory Whaling, who has used a cane since his double-knee replacement, walked by the deputy as he spoke to the man in question.

The man complained about being harassed by the facility’s residents and pointed out Whaling as a person who has told him to stop being shirtless multiple times. After momentarily acknowledging that he’d complained about the man in the past, Whaling continued to walk away as the deputy told him to leave.

Glaser’s body camera captured the entire encounter.

“Go over there, or you’re going to end up in the back of my car,” Glaser said.

Whaling shouted back at the officer before Glaser doubled down on putting him in custody.

“I bet you won’t,” Whaling said, pointing at his replaced knees.

The deputy claimed Whaling impeded his investigation before threatening to taze him. Glaser then throws Whaling to the ground and arrests him.

“If you’re a black male in America and you’re getting jacked around by some cop especially when you’re cooperating,” Whaling’s attorney Jerry Steering said. “You’re doing what the officer says, you’ve got two bad knees, the replacements were coming loose, you’re upset and you want some justice over it.”

Steering said the deputy cited Steering for interfering with a deputy even though Glaser’s body camera showed him walking away with his cane.

“He didn’t want this fellow, this deputy, to get away with it,” Steering said.

The county paid Whaling $498,000 to settle the case. Glaser has since been fired.

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