Victim’s family files to toss counterclaim by officer in killing

A family that filed a civil-rights lawsuit over the 2017 shooting death of James Hartsfield, who was killed in 2017 by an off-duty Little Rock police officer outside a late-night bar, is asking a judge to throw out the officer’s recently filed counterclaim alleging the family has defamed her.

Hartsfield’s family filed the federal lawsuit May 13 against Officer Brittany Gunn and the city, alleging that Gunn violated the rights of the 28-year-old Little Rock man when she shot him in his car Oct. 7, 2017, outside a bar on University Avenue. Gunn was working at the bar when Hartsfield, acting as a parttime Lyft driver, pulled in to provide a ride home to a customer.

The lawsuit and attorneys for the Hartsfield family have alleged that before Gunn got into Hartsfield’s car and tried to pull him out, then shot him as the car careened toward a brick wall with her in it, she recognized him from college and from a fitness center where they had both worked out. The family alleges that Gunn tried to have a conversation with Hartsfield but “the conversation did not go as Gunn hoped it would and the situation quickly became heated,” and that she shot him because she was angry that he rejected her romantic overtures.

In her counterclaim, Gunn denied having ever met Hartsfield before she encountered him in the parking lot of the Local Union bar, where police said she ordered him to stop the car and get out because he appeared to be drinking while driving. Gunn also denied attending the University of Arkansas

at Little Rock, where Hartsfield’s family claimed she knew him from a shared class. Gunn’s counterclaim includes transcripts from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, which she attended from 2007 through 2011.

Gunn further denied hiding information linking her to Hartsfield during a police investigation that cleared her of improperly using deadly force.

Attorney Mike Laux, who represents the Hartsfield family, filed a motion Wednesday to dismiss the counterclaim. In a news release, he said the motion is based primarily on “Gunn’s failure to articulate the proper standard of defamation for a public figure, such as a police officer like Ms. Gunn.”

The motion states that public officials must allege “actual malice” to bring a defamation claim, and that Gunn’s counterclaim doesn’t make such an allegation so it must be dismissed.

Laux also said in the news release that Hartsfield’s sister, Lauren, “submits evidence that Ms. Gunn knew Mr. Hartsfield prior to killing him at the Local Union: an affidavit from an eyewitness with personal knowledge.”

He attached an affidavit from Chantal Jenkins, who said she was a good friend of Hartsfield’s. The affidavit states that he told her on Aug. 29, 2017, that the previous night he had fired a gun at someone in a nightclub parking lot in self-defense, injuring a man who had pulled a gun on him. Jenkins said she agreed to accompany Hartsfield to the police department to make a voluntary statement explaining what happened, and saw Gunn exit the interview room and hand notes to a clerk. The affidavit said Jenkins didn’t know Gunn beforehand but recognized her in news reports after the shooting.

Jenkins’ affidavit also said that she was at an outlet mall on her birthday more than a month after the shooting and saw Gunn, in her police uniform, in the food court. The affidavit states, “based on the length of our eye contact, I believed that she recognized me as a friend of James” from the day of his interview.

In court documents, Laux wrote that “while it appears possible that … Gunn may not have attended UALR as alleged, Plaintiff nonetheless can provide evidence that she knew James Hartsfield prior to killing him.”

He also wrote that Lauren Hartsfield “can show evidence that … Gunn was actively and salaciously seeking a male partner around the time that Plaintiff alleges … Gunn had feelings for her brother.”

Laux said in the news release that Gunn tweeted in 2011 and 2012, using the Twitter handle @MachineGunnB, that she was looking for a man, and during those posts used the same racial slur that the plaintiffs say she used at the scene of the shooting.

“While Ms. Jenkins’ affidavit is enough to destroy Defendant Gunn’s defamation counterclaim, Plaintiff intends to provide even more evidence that Defendant Gunn knew Mr. Hartsfield prior to accosting him and shooting him on Oct. 7, 2017 in her substantive case,” the motion states.