The Clark County Council agreed Wednesday to pay $3.5 million to settle the wrongful demise lawsuit introduced by the household of Jenoah Donald, a Black motorist killed by a Clark County sheriff’s deputy in February 2021.
The household filed the federal swimsuit in February 2022 in U.S. District Courtroom in Tacoma alleging wrongful demise, assault and battery, negligence, and deprivation of civil rights. It named as defendants Deputy Sean Boyle, who shot Donald; Deputy Holly Troupe, who struggled with Donald in his automotive; then-Sheriff Chuck Atkins; and a number of unknown sheriff’s workplace workers.
The events agreed final month to dismiss the claims towards Boyle and Troupe, leaving Clark County as the only real remaining defendant. Trial was set to start June 9.
An announcement from county spokeswoman Joni McAnally mentioned regardless of the settlement, the county “continues to deny liability for this unfortunate incident.”
Present Sheriff John Horch mentioned in a press release deputies acted in response to regulation and guarded themselves and others.
Donald’s mom, Sue Zawacky, mentioned throughout a February 2022 press convention she hoped the lawsuit would lead to change.
A panel of prosecuting attorneys from outdoors Clark County examined the capturing and located that the deputies acted in good religion that evening.
The lawsuit alleged that Donald, 30, was “unlawfully stopped for suspicion of drug use under the pretext of a defective rear light” by Boyle on Feb. 4, 2021, in Hazel Dell. Within the lawsuit, the agency cites a 1999 Washington Supreme Courtroom case that discovered it’s unconstitutional for police to make use of a visitors cease as an excuse to analyze suspected legal exercise.
The household’s attorneys mentioned Donald was cooperative when he was stopped. However the state of affairs escalated after Troupe mentioned she noticed a pointy object in Donald’s car, which investigators mentioned they later decided was a screwdriver. In keeping with investigative stories, Donald didn’t possess a firearm, and he didn’t seem to brandish any weapons throughout the encounter.
An out of doors investigation confirmed Donald, Boyle and Troupe struggled inside Donald’s Mercedes sedan because the deputies tried to drag him from the automotive. Boyle fired twice when Donald ignored instructions to let him go because the automotive lurched ahead with the deputy partially inside, in response to investigators. Donald died Feb. 12 of a gunshot wound to the pinnacle.
The capturing occurred lower than a mile from the positioning of the Oct. 29, 2020, deadly capturing of Kevin Peterson Jr., a 21-year-old Black man. Clark County sheriff’s deputies fatally shot Peterson as he ran from an undercover Xanax capsule sting.
Peterson’s household, additionally represented by Lindquist and Lee, filed a wrongful demise lawsuit towards the county in Could 2022. In October, the county agreed to pay the Peterson household $1.25 million to settle that lawsuit. That capturing was additionally dominated as justified by an outdoor prosecutor’s workplace.
“After the shooting of Kevin Peterson and after the shooting of Jenoah Donald, to the best of our knowledge, there wasn’t discipline, there wasn’t retraining, there was no cultural adjustment,” Lindquist mentioned beforehand. “And if there had been, perhaps we wouldn’t have seen the shooting of Officer (Donald) Sahota.”
In January, Sahota’s widow filed a wrongful demise lawsuit towards the county and the deputy who mistakenly shot her husband. That case stays ongoing, and a trial date has not but been set, court docket data present.
