Attorneys for the city and Park Plaza mall have asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit alleging that an off-duty Little Rock officer used excessive force when he shot and wounded two men in the mall's parking deck on Dec. 27, 2011.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Johnnie Campbell, Keithen D. Pettus and Joseph P. Williams, was originally filed on Dec. 26, 2014, but was dropped at the plaintiffs' request in 2016 and then refiled last year.
It alleges that Christopher Johannes, a Little Rock police officer who was hired to provide off-duty security at the mall, used excessive and unreasonable force when he fired 12 shots at a 2006 Chevrolet Malibu that he said Williams was backing out of a parking space at high speed about 2:30 p.m., after being told to stop. Williams was shot four times in the back, while Pettus, a front-seat passenger, was grazed by a bullet on the left side of his face. Campbell was in the back seat and wasn't shot.
The city contends Johannes fired the shots because he believed that he and an unarmed mall security officer, Sara Hawkins, were in the path of the fleeing vehicle and were in danger of being struck by it. The vehicle then changed direction and crashed into a wall of the parking deck, at which point, police said, the three men got out and ran.
Johannes apprehended Williams, who the city said had tried to back out in a hurry after seeing the uniformed police officer and the security officer approach because he didn't want to be caught with drugs and guns. The other two men stopped running once they realized the police had shot at the car, the city acknowledged.
Police reported finding two plastic bags of cocaine and about $2,400 cash during a pat-down search of Williams. Inside the car, officers found Xanax and other pills, and two pistols.
After Williams' release from the hospital, he was arrested and eventually pleaded guilty to charges of simultaneous possession of drugs and firearms, possession of cocaine with the intent to deliver, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of firearms by a felon, misdemeanor harassment, possession of a controlled substance (oxymorphone) with the intent to deliver and possession of oxycodone with the intent to deliver.
Police have said Johannes approached the car while assisting two mall security officers after a shopper reported that the men had asked her 17-year-old daughter to get in their car.
The lawsuit, filed on the three men's behalf by attorney Willard Proctor Jr. of Little Rock, is set for trial beginning Oct. 9 before U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson. In addition to Johannes and the mall, it also names as defendants the city, the Little Rock Police Department, former Police Chief Stuart Thomas and the mall security officers.
In a motion asking Wilson to throw out the case on legal arguments alone, Assistant City Attorney Alexander Betton argued last week that the undisputed facts demonstrate that the plaintiffs cannot prove any of the allegations.
In the mall's motion to dismiss the case, also filed last week, attorney Mark Breeding argued that the men were trespassers at the mall at the time of the shooting. He also argued that Johannes was acting as a law enforcement officer, and the mall had no legal authority to interfere with or restrict his powers as a law officer.
Metro on 08/02/2018