FAYETTEVILLE -- Rogers police officers had ample reason to fear for their lives and the safety of bystanders when they shot to death a woman wielding a knife in a store almost five years ago, according to a defense motion filed in a federal lawsuit.
Fallon Frederick was shot to death Aug. 1, 2011, after three Rogers police officers responded to her 911 call for help in a convenience store at New Hope Road and Eighth Street.
Legal Lingo
Summary Judgment
A decision made on the basis of statements and evidence presented for the record without a trial. It is used when there is no dispute as to the facts of the case, and one party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Source: lectlaw.com
Frederick was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and thought she was being followed or pursued, according to the lawsuit, which also contends that she was cowering in the corner of the store with her purse and a knife when police arrived. Nick Torkelson then shocked Frederick with a stun gun. The lawsuit contends that she tried to get away, and Vence Motsinger shot her several times. Frederick was then handcuffed and died at the scene.
A motion to dismiss the case, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, contends that Frederick was not cowering and that she had methamphetamine in her system. The motion for summary judgment says the entire confrontation was captured on the store's video system and disproves the lawsuit's contentions.
"With a knife raised near her head and in a stabbing position, Fallon Frederick charged Cpl. Nick Torkelson and Officer Vence Motsinger down a narrow aisle," the motion says. "The threat she posed at that moment left Officer Motsinger with no choice but to defend himself and his fellow officer by firing three shots at Ms. Frederick ... no situation more clearly illustrates the propriety of an officer's use of deadly force than this."
The motion contends that the officers repeatedly asked Frederick to put down the 4-inch folding knife and that they attempted to use a stun gun to subdue her, but one of the probes hit Frederick's purse.
Frederick then charged the officers with the knife raised, running toward them down the 4-foot-wide, 15-foot-long aisle, according to the motion. The relevant question is whether the officers believed their lives or the lives of others were in danger at the moment the shots were fired, the motion said.
"When she starts charging toward Torkelson, at that moment I was in fear for his life," Motsinger told Arkansas State Police during an investigation of the shooting. "And then I was in fear for my life."
The motion also says the U.S. Supreme Court held last year in San Francisco v. Sheehan that shooting a mentally ill woman who threatened officers with a knife was objectively reasonable.
The lawsuit names the city, Motsinger, Torkelson and Scott Clifton, the third officer at the scene, in their individual and official capacities.
The lawsuit claims the three officers used unreasonably excessive and deadly force. The suit also claims the city failed to properly equip, train, supervise and control the officers regarding the use of force and techniques to properly restrain and control a person suffering from delusions and mental illness.
An investigation by the Benton County prosecutor's office determined that the shooting by Motsinger was justified.
The lawsuit was filed in July 2013 by Frederick's brother.
"At no time up to this point, none of the police officers had a reasonable fear of imminent bodily harm," according to the suit. "Fallon was in the far corner of the store, cowering and scared and in a defensive posture. Instead of [defusing] the situation and attempting to calm and reassure Fallon Frederick that she was safe and that they were in fact police officers, Torkelson advanced upon a cornered Fallon Frederick and fired a Taser or other electrical stun gun into her body."
The stun gun made a loud popping noise, similar to gunfire, followed by the sound of the electrical current, according to the suit, which contends that Frederick responded by trying to flee.
State Desk on 05/28/2016