The sister of a man fatally shot by a Little Rock police officer last year has filed a civil-rights lawsuit against the officer as well as the city’s police department and its chief.
At a news conference Thursday at the state Capitol, attorneys from two law firms representing Vanessa Cole, the sister of Roy Richards, announced the claim seeking punitive damages. It was filed Thursday morning on what would have been Richards’ 47th birthday, attorney Mike Laux said.
“My brother was shot in the head, but it blew the family’s brains out,” Cole said.
Richards was fatally shot by Officer Dennis Hutchins on Oct. 25 in the 500 block of East Eighth Street.
Richards’ uncle, Derrell Underwood, had called police to his residence in that area because he wanted his nephew removed from his property. Underwood told the 911 dispatcher, “Now don’t hurt him [Richards]. I just want him out of my yard and away from my house.”
Officers were dispatched at 12:37 a.m. Police said they found Richards and Underwood fighting in the front yard, and they stopped as officers approached.
Richards then walked to a dark-colored vehicle out of the officers’ view and came back to chase Underwood while "pointing a long gun at his back," according to a Little Rock Police Department statement.
Hutchins then fired multiple rounds and hit Richards. The officer told investigators he shot at Richards because he believed Richards would shoot Underwood in the back, according to the department.
Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley announced in March that Hutchins would not be charged.
At the Thursday conference, Laux said the lawsuit was filed because the police department’s investigation into the shooting was “slanted, biased, fixed, not legitimate.”
He noted Richards was carrying a BB gun and said officers crept up on the scene instead of announcing themselves. Laux said witnesses to the killing disagree with police’s account. Underwood, the uncle, told investigators he was inside his home when Hutchins fired shots. A neighbor who watched the altercation from across the street agreed with Underwood, Laux said.
“The bottom line is this. Roy Richards was executed that early morning by officers who never gave him a warning, who shouldn’t have been using an assault rifle,” he said.
After a brief review of the complaint, City Attorney Tom Carpenter sent a message to Mayor Mark Stodola and the city’s Board of Directors informing them of the litigation.
In his message, Carpenter said that neither the prosecuting attorney’s office nor the Little Rock Police Department found any wrongdoing committed by Hutchins. Carpenter said that Laux filed the suit “perhaps because the rifle that Mr. Richards was brandishing turned out to be a nonlethal weapon.”
The police department’s protocol for using deadly force requires officers to believe there is an “immediate” threat of death or serious physical injury, to either themselves or another person, Carpenter wrote.
Though the brandished gun turned out to be nonlethal, that had “nothing to do with the reasonableness of the [officer's] perspective,” Carpenter wrote, saying it applies “20/20 hindsight to a situation under vastly different circumstances.”
Police department spokesman Lt. Steve McClanahan did not immediately respond to a message requesting comment.
Cole described her only brother as a decent man who always told his nephews, “I’m in your corner.” Now, when she cleans her father’s house, Cole finds tissues lying next to Richards’ obituary because her father’s been crying, she said.
Richards’ two sons sat in the front row, heads bowed. As Cole spoke about their father, the older son ducked his head into his hooded sweatshirt.
Laux has previously represented the families of others fatally shot by Little Rock police officers including Eugene Ellison and Bobby Moore.
The lawsuit did not list a specific amount sought in damages.
Read Friday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.