Trooper testifies in stun-gun trial

LITTLE ROCK — Lingering tension between a Pope County family and the city, county and state police agencies that patrol the area was apparent in a video jurors watched Friday before being sent home for the weekend.

The panel of eight women and four men is scheduled to return at 8:30 a.m. Monday to the federal courts building in Little Rock to hear closing arguments and begin deliberating on the family’s allegations two Pope County Sheriff’s OFfice deputies used excessive force during an encounter with two family members on the night of Sept. 13, 2011.

The video, played by the deputies’ attorneys, was taken by a camera in a state trooper’s car when he stopped the family’s vehicle June 23, 2012, nine months after the encounter, because he said driver Ron Robinson, a Dover businessman, had crossed the centerline on Arkansas 7.

The attorneys were trying to show jurors hostility displayed by Robinson and his son, Matthew, when questioned by police. But Ron Robinson testified later, as a rebuttal witness, the video is a perfect example of the police harassment the family has been subjected to for four years as a result of its lawsuit.

The video shows Cpl. Chris Goodman pulling over the sport utility vehicle Ron Robinson was driving, and in which Matthew Robinson was a passenger, and approaching the driver’s window. While asking for the elder Robinson’s driver’s license and being met with resistance, the trooper appears to slowly become aware he has stopped members of the family that had become notorious locally for its ongoing dispute with law enforcement officers.

Goodman can be seen shaking his head in exasperation, before saying in a relaxed, conversational tone, “Can y’all not be respectful, a little bit? … You’re not going to win this traffic stop.”

Goodman testified he saw a .22-caliber pistol — in a case and unloaded, the Robinsons say — on the console between the father and son, who said they were headed to a shooting range. The trooper can be heard asking Ron Robinson to get out of the vehicle, and telling the father and son not to put their hands “anywhere near” the gun.

The trooper can also be heard saying, “I’ve explained why I stopped you. … It had nothing to do with your prior incident,” which, he noted, “was a big deal.” He also asked Matthew Robinson if he hadn’t learned anything from what a judge had told them about his actions during the 2011 incident, which resulted in Matthew Robinson being pronounced delinquent in juvenile court on a charge of failing to submit to arrest.

The stop ended without a ticket being issued.

Goodman told the jury he was assigned to the highway patrol division and was on the watch for driving-while-intoxicated infractions, and one of the signs of a possibly intoxicated driver is crossing the centerline. Wearing an emblem proclaiming him the 2011 Trooper of the Year, Goodman testified he made 15 to 30 traffic stops every working day, and more on Friday nights.

He told Little Rock attorney Keith Wren, who is representing the officers being sued, after he stopped the Robinsons, he began experiencing odd situations that made him feel anxious.

In April 2014, Goodman said, he was making a traffic stop in Dover late one Friday night and saw “a little gold car drive by me, turn around and sit there a couple of blocks away.” He said when he got back in his patrol car, turned the corner and made another traffic stop, “The same car came and stopped a couple of blocks behind me.”

“That’s scary,” Goodman told Wren. “I didn’t know what their intentions were.”

He said he then caught up with the gold car and pulled it over, and “the only occupant was the younger Mr. Robinson.” He said he told Matthew Robinson, “What you’re doing is scary, and I don’t want any trouble with you.”

On cross-examination, Goodman acknowledged being friends with Stewart Condley, another trooper in the area who was present during the 2011 encounter, and who was initially a defendant in the family’s lawsuit until a federal appeals court dropped him from the case. Goodman also acknowledged he regularly works with Deputies Steven Payton and Kristopher Stevens, who are defendants in the case, but denied being close friends with them.

Goodman also acknowledged to the family’s attorney, Pat James of Little Rock, he has pulled the Robinsons over four times in the four years since the 2011 incident — “the father twice and the son twice.” He said he didn’t know who he was pulling over in at least two of the instances.

In the stop jurors watched on a courtroom camera Friday, Goodman said, “I didn’t know who they were.” While he may have known through a radio check the car was registered to Ron Robinson, “I didn’t know who Ron Robinson was,” he said.

Ron Robinson, testifying as a rebuttal witness, told jurors since the September 2011 incident that is the focus of the lawsuit, the family has been stopped nine times by various area law enforcement officers, and none of the stops have resulted in citations.

He denied crossing the centerline before Goodman stopped him in 2012, saying he had seen the trooper on the road and was being careful not to violate any laws before he was stopped.

“I’m very concerned for the safety of my family,” Robinson testified, noting that’s one reason he is seeking punitive damages in the civil lawsuit. Declining to call the series of traffic stops a conspiracy, Robinson described them as “antagonizing, harassing.”

In a trial that has lasted a week so far, the Robinsons contend there was no reason for Matthew Robinson and his mother to be stopped and questioned while out walking their dog in Dover after 9 p.m. The officers said Matthew Robinson was acting suspiciously, prompting Payton to stop to see if there was a problem. Officers said the refusal of the mother and son to identify themselves or answer questions resulted in their arrests and Matthew Robinson having a Taser used on him multiple times.