Tammi Bell, foreground with black sweater, mother of Kevin Peterson Jr., joins his father, Kevin Peterson Sr., black hat, and other family members during a press conference as they announce a lawsuit against the Clark County Sheriff's Office after the 21-year-old Black man was shot in 2020, as seen at the Aero Club on Thursday afternoon, May 26, 2022. (Amanda Cowan/The Columbian)
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Clark County’s attempt to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Kevin Peterson Jr., a 21-year-old Black man who was shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies during a drug sting in October 2020.
In a ruling filed Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld a prior U.S. District Court judge’s denial of the county’s motion to dismiss all claims in the Peterson family’s suit.
The Peterson family’s complaint alleges wrongful death, negligence, excessive force and brutality, unreasonable seizure, and deprivation of familial relationships in Peterson’s Oct. 29, 2020, death. The lawsuit targets the county, as well as sheriff’s Detective Robert Anderson, who the complaint says fired the first shot at Peterson; Deputy Jonathan Feller, who also shot at Peterson; former Sheriff Chuck Atkins; and others who the suit alleges were negligent in Peterson’s slaying.
Attorneys for Peterson’s family, Mark Lindquist and Angus Lee, said the family is grateful for the ruling.
“They want justice for their son and for the community,” Lindquist said Wednesday in a news release. “They trust jurors will do the right thing. Clark County, unfortunately, has not. The county keeps stalling.”
The county declined to comment on the pending lawsuit.
The Court of Appeals found Anderson and Feller were not entitled to qualified immunity and that “a reasonable jury could find that the officers’ use of deadly force was constitutionally excessive,” according to the court’s memorandum.
The court noted, “Peterson was not suspected of committing a violent crime, and a jury could reasonably conclude that he posed no immediate threat to the officers or others.”
Three deputies fatally shot Peterson as he ran, armed with a handgun, from the scene of a planned sale of 50 Xanax pills. The shooting occurred shortly before 6 p.m. in the parking lot of a shuttered U.S. Bank branch, 6829 N.E. Highway 99, adjacent to the Quality Inn where the drug sale was set to take place.
In August 2021, an outside prosecutor’s office tasked with reviewing the shooting found it was legally justified. It determined Anderson, Feller and Detective Jeremy Brown, who also fired at Peterson, had acted in “good faith,” meaning a similarly situated law enforcement officer would have also used deadly force under the circumstances. (Brown was shot and killed during a July 23, 2021, stakeout of three suspects in a gun-trafficking investigation.)
However, investigators’ findings and the family’s lawsuit differ in their accounts of what happened.
Investigators concluded Peterson had committed conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance and attempted assault on law enforcement when he pointed a loaded Glock 23 .40-caliber pistol at pursuing deputies.
The lawsuit contends Peterson did not threaten nor point the gun at pursuing deputies, and the object seen in his hand was actually a cellphone; he had been using FaceTime with the mother of his child during the incident.
The appeals court wrote, “Although Peterson was armed and actively trying to evade police officers, the evidence, construed in his favor, suggests that he did not point the gun at anyone, say a word to the officers, make any harrowing gestures, or make any furtive or threatening movements towards the officers or the public.”
A new trial date for the suit has not yet been set, court records show.
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