Man: Officer Arrested Me Because I'm Iraq Native

INDIANAPOLIS -- An Iraq native says an Indianapolis police officer harassed and arrested him last week because of his background.

The officer, however, has a very different account of what happened, saying he arrested Kassim Al-Awadi because Al-Awadi started yelling angrily at him when the subject of Iraq came up in conversation at an Indianapolis gas station on West 10th Street.

Al-Awadi, a 34-year-old U.S. citizen, said he was about to pump gasoline into his car Friday when Officer Brendon Smith noticed a sticker on the back of the vehicle -- a sticker depicting an Iraq flag.

"He (saw) the flag and he came ... beside me," Al-Awadi (pictured) told 6News' Derrik Thomas on Monday.

Al-Awadi said he and Smith -- a former U.S. military medic who did a tour of duty in the Mideast -- talked about Iraq, and that the officer eventually told him to go back to Iraq if he didn't like living in the U.S.

"He said they're going to send me back home if I don't like it here. I said, 'You have no right to send me back home because I have citizenship just like you,'" Al-Awadi said. "He said, 'Yes, this is my country. I'm the law here.'"

Al-Awadi was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. In a probable cause affidavit, Smith said he was pumping gasoline into his squad car when Al-Awadi, whose car was directly across from his, began looking at him menacingly.

"I asked (Al-Awadi) how he was doing, and he replied, 'Not so good. I've been here too long,'" Smith said in the affidavit. "In an effort to strike up a friendly conversation, I asked him if he was complaining about the time or the time waiting at the gas pump ... . (Al-Awadi) stated, 'I mean the country. I haven't been home in 10 years.'"

Smith asked where Al-Awadi was from, and when Al-Awadi replied he was from Baghdad, Smith mentioned that he had visited there once, according to the affidavit.

"At this point, (Al-Awadi) began getting loud and angry toward me, stating that his people were left during the first Gulf War on their own, and that (former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein) had destroyed their family business, and that things were no better now," Smith said in the affidavit.

People at the station were beginning to look at Al-Awadi, and Smith asked him to lower his voice, according to the affidavit.

"Al-Awadi stated that he would not calm down, and that he was an American citizen. I told him that I was glad he was (a) citizen, and that there are so many people in the area who are not, and that he should be proud of that," Smith said in the affidavit.

Al-Awadi continued to yell that Smith couldn't tell him to lower his voice or calm down, according to the affidavit. Al-Awadi eventually told Smith that he was running late for work and demanded that Smith write a note explaining that the officer delayed him at the gas station, the affidavit says.

After Smith declined to write the letter, saying that Al-Awadi had been free to leave at any time and never had to talk to him at the gas station, Al-Awadi twice more yelled that Smith needed to write the letter, according to the affidavit.

"I ordered Al-Awadi to lower his voice immediately or he would be arrested. Al-Awadi started again with he was an American citizen, and at this point I put him in handcuffs," Smith said in the affidavit.

Lt. Jeff Duhamell, a spokesman for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, said he thinks Smith did nothing wrong.

"In fact, the way it sounds, (Al-Awadi) just continued on and was creating such a problem that the officer felt he needed to make the arrest," Duhamell said.

Al-Awadi's brother Nadhim Al-Awadi, who owns a local restaurant, said the arrest is scary and contradicts freedom.

"Free to speech. Free religious, OK? So, free everything. You are freedom, but I don't see that one right now," Nadhim Al-Awadi said.

Kassim Al-Awadi said his wife also has a sticker of the Iraq flag on the back of her minivan, and that she is now afraid of driving the vehicle.

He said he believes Smith doesn't like Iraqis. Duhamell disagreed.

"(Smith) did a tour there as a medic and helped that country, so I don't see any animosity there whatsoever," Duhamell said.

Al-Awadi is scheduled to attend a pretrial hearing on the disorderly conduct charge on Wednesday.