FAYETTEVILLE -- A federal appeals court Tuesday affirmed a lower court's decision to dismiss a wrongful-death lawsuit against Rogers police officers.
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.
Frederick was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and thought she was being followed or pursued, according to the lawsuit. Police said she was wielding a knife and had methamphetamine in her system.
Officer Nick Torkelson shocked Frederick with a stun gun. The lawsuit contended she tried to get away, and officer Vence Motsinger shot her several times. Frederick was handcuffed and died at the scene.
U.S. District Judge Tim Brooks granted a motion for summary judgment in favor of the police officers and dismissed the lawsuit July 25, 2016.
"Officer Motsinger's shooting of Ms. Frederick, though tragic, was not unreasonable," Brooks wrote in his opinion and order of dismissal. "Officer Motsinger had every reason to believe that Ms. Frederick posed an immediate threat of serious harm to both himself and his fellow officers."
Lawyers for Frederick's estate argued on appeal that the case was improperly dismissed. They said the officer's use of a stun gun on Frederick caused her death because it provoked a violent reaction leading to Motsinger's use of deadly force.
A three-justice panel for the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected that argument.
"Even if she was suffering from mental illness or other impairment, the relevant inquiry is whether she posed a threat, not what prompted her threatening conduct," judges wrote in their opinion.
The appellate judges agreed with Brooks that Torkelson's use of a stun gun and Motsinger's use of deadly force were both reasonable in the situation.
The officers' motion for summary judgment said the entire confrontation was captured on the store's video system and disproved the lawsuit's contentions. Brooks relied heavily on that video in forming his opinion.
The motion contended that the officers repeatedly asked Frederick to put down the 4-inch folding knife, and they attempted to use a stun gun to subdue her, but one of the probes hit Frederick's purse.
With the knife raised, Frederick ran toward the officers down the 4-foot-wide, 15-foot-long aisle, according to the motion. The relevant question was whether the officers believed their lives or the lives of others were in danger at the moment the shots were fired, the motion said.
The lawsuit originally named the city, Motsinger, Torkelson and Scott Clifton, the third officer at the scene, in their individual and official capacities. The city was dropped from the case.
The lawsuit, filed in July 2013 by Frederick's brother, claimed the three officers used unreasonably excessive and deadly force.
Metro on 10/20/2017