A wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the family of a 22-year-old newlywed from Traskwood who was killed a year ago by a vehicle fleeing from Pulaski County sheriff's deputies was dismissed Friday after a monetary settlement was reached.
Terms of the settlement in the lawsuit for private parties were unavailable under a confidentiality agreement. Those defendants were Walgreens, University Shopping Center, driver Deonte Jones and his aunt, Deanna Powell, who loaned Jones the Chevy Tahoe that struck Heather Cater.
But the part of the settlement involving Pulaski County, a public entity, shows the sheriff's office paid $129,000 to Cater's husband, Layton Cater, and father, Kenneth Cook, co-administrators of her estate, while not admitting liability.
Meanwhile, Jones, 19, who was a junior in high school at the time of the crash, is facing charges of capital murder, leaving the scene of an accident with injury or death, delivery of a controlled substance and fleeing. On Aug. 20, he was deemed mentally competent to stand trial, and he is scheduled for a jury trial Feb. 9 in Pulaski County Circuit Court.
A jury trial over the lawsuit hadn't been scheduled in federal court, where the suit was filed Oct. 14. It was dismissed by Chief U.S. District Judge Brian Miller at the request of all parties, citing the settlement.
Attorney Darren O'Quinn of Little Rock, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, said a confidentiality agreement prevents him from making any statements about the resolution of the matter.
However, noting a fatal Little Rock police chase on Chicot Road earlier this week that resulted in the death of a woman who was walking with her daughter, O'Quinn said the case is a good example of why "police officers should be able to chase someone and arrest them, but they shouldn't be able to chase them through a school yard, a parking lot or a residential neighborhood if it's not important."
In this case, O'Quinn said, the brief chase that began in the parking lot of the Walgreens store at University and Asher avenues in Little Rock and ended about 100 yards away in the adjoining parking lot of University Shopping Center next door, where Cater worked at a dentist's office, was "for a half a bag of marijuana."
Capt. Carl Minden of the sheriff's office said Friday that the office doesn't typically comment on litigation, but he confirmed that four of the six deputies named in the lawsuit are still employed by the office. The two who aren't are Deputy Adam Robertson, who Minden said quit to return to work in the private sector, and Lt. James Potter, who Minden said was fired from his job as supervisor of the narcotics unit. Minden said Potter wasn't fired because of the Sept. 4, 2014, crash, which occurred while he was off duty, but because of other matters.
The other deputies named in the lawsuit are Cardarious Walker, who was driving the marked patrol unit that struck Cater as she stood on a curb in the University Shopping Center parking lot; James Foster, a narcotics officer who was trying to arrest Jones; Adam Robertson, another narcotics officer who was working with Foster to try to arrest Jones; and Sgt. Christopher Holmes, a supervisor who also wasn't present in the parking lot.
Another deputy, Austin McKinniss, was a passenger in the patrol car driven by Walker and was recently dismissed from the suit by the plaintiffs.
O'Quinn said the wreck happened about 6 p.m. as Cater and two friends who worked with her at the dental office had just left work. They were waiting to get in her car to leave but were blocked by deputies who were trying to arrest Jones in the nearby Walgreens parking lot.
O'Quinn said Foster and Robertson, plainclothes narcotics officers, had noticed Jones standing in front of them at a Walgreens checkout counter, smelling like marijuana, and then watched him outside the pharmacy as another man got into and out of the Tahoe, leading the officers to suspect the other man was buying drugs.
The narcotics officers alerted other deputies, who arrived in the parking lot in a marked patrol unit and turned on the car's blue lights, prompting Jones to flee in the Tahoe, which had been parked at Walgreens, O'Quinn said. He said the Tahoe sped out of the Walgreens lot, heading the wrong direction according to pavement markers, and into the adjacent University Shopping Center lot. O'Quinn said Cater was standing on a narrow raised median, next to her car, as the Tahoe, followed by the patrol car, began moving quickly toward her.
"She panicked and didn't know which way to go -- and stepped the wrong way and got run over," he said.
Cater was thrown into the air and dragged nearly 75 feet before the Tahoe ran over her, according to the lawsuit. She was hospitalized with spinal and lung injuries and died early the next morning.
The sheriff's office said the situation didn't amount to a pursuit, but O'Quinn said he thought the deputies acted recklessly in a parking lot where there were several bystanders, including Cater and her friends. He said deputies had Jones' license plate number and knew his identity, and they should have balanced the danger to the public with the gravity of the suspected crime.
"Heather was a beautiful person," he said. "She was a very positive person, and very smart. She had only been married about six months, and they were going to have a baby."
He said she had gone to school to be a dental assistant, which is the job she was working at in the shopping center, and "she had aspirations of being a dental hygienist at UAMS -- and had the grades to back it up."
The lawsuit also alleged that the design of the parking lots was unsafe and contributed to the crash.
Metro on 09/19/2015