Court overturns $32 milllion judgment in teen’s death

BENTON — A federal judge has overturned a $32 million jury award to the family of a Benton teen who was shot and killed by a Benton police officer in 2016 as the boy stood next to the Saline River in a wooded area near his home.

On Feb. 5, a jury of nine women and two men deliberated for just over five hours to return verdicts absolving Kyle Ellison, the Benton police officer who killed 17-year-old Keagan Schweikle, of criminal responsibility in connection to the shooting, but the jury found that the city of Benton and then-Police Chief Kirk Lane had failed to properly train the department’s officers and to properly investigate the shooting.

The jury awarded damages to the parents — Piper Partridge, who currently lives in Colorado, and Dominic Schweikle of Durango, Colo. — in the amount of $30 million from the city of Benton and $2 million from Lane.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Brian Miller, the presiding judge in the case, vacated the jury’s verdict and dismissed the case with prejudice. In his order, Miller said because the jury had absolved Ellison of violating Schweikle’s rights through the use of deadly force and said the question presented by the defendants in a Feb. 9 motion for judgment as a matter of law was whether the City of Benton and the former police chief can be held liable for failing to adequately train the department’s officers and for failing to adequately investigate prior accusations of excessive force “when the officer who used deadly force against Schweikle did not violate his rights.”

“The answer is no,” Miller said in the two-page order filed on Tuesday. “The City and Lane cannot be held liable for Schweikle’s unfortunate death because there was no underlying violation of Schweikle’s rights.”

Miller went on to write that, “judgment must be entered for the City and Lane even if Ellison’s use of force … resulted from specific rules or regulations … because Ellison did not violate Schweikle’s rights.”

Miller has dismissed the case twice with prejudice already — in 2018 and again in 2021 — and was reversed both times by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which remanded the case back to Miller both times.

Los Angeles attorney Mark Geragos, who is representing Schweikle’s parents in the matter, expressed disappointment with Miller’s ruling and said he plans to take the case back to the Eighth Circuit.

During testimony at the February trial, Partridge said her son had suffered from depression and that on the day he was killed, he had walked into a wooded area near their home with a pistol and a short time later, was shot dead after police responded to a 911 call from Partridge asking for help.

According to trial testimony from Ellison and two other police officers on the scene, as police arrived Schweikle raised the gun to his temple and Ellison ordered him to drop the firearm multiple times, but as the teen began to lower the pistol Ellison fired three shots, striking Schweikle twice in the chest.

In his 2018 order, Miller said that after Ellison ordered Schweikle to drop the gun and the boy moved it away from his head, the intention behind his actions was ambiguous, leaving the officer little choice but to shoot. Miller noted that “Keagan could have quickly pointed the gun at Ellison and opened fire almost instantaneously. … Ellison had a right to protect himself.” While lethal force may not be used when a suspect poses no immediate threat to an officer or others, “it was objectively reasonable for Ellison to use deadly force given the totality of the circumstances,” Miller said in his 2018 ruling.

In July 2019, a three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit reversed Miller’s decision, saying he had ruled too early in the process — before either side had begun the discovery process — and remanded the case back to Miller.

On Aug. 30, 2021, Miller — in response to a motion for summary judgment filed by the defendants — ruled that the defendants were shielded by qualified immunity and dismissed the case again.

Qualified immunity protects government officials from lawsuits alleging violations of a plaintiff’s rights unless it can be shown that a clearly established statutory or constitutional right was violated.

On June 12, 2023, following oral arguments before a threejudge Eighth Circuit panel the previous January, Miller was reversed a second time, and the case was remanded back to the lower court once again.

In late January, Miller denied a motion by the defendants for judgment on the pleadings, reconsideration and bifurcation of the matter, noting in his order that his two previous rulings dismissing the case in favor of the defendants had been overturned by the appeals court.

Geragos said on Tuesday that Miller’s order, which was filed at 3:26 p.m., came on the heels of a YouTube video featuring current Benton Police Chief Scotty Hodges, who said that Schweikle had pointed his gun at police although testimony at the trial conflicted on that point. Hodges said in the video — which according to YouTube was uploaded on Monday — that an internal review of the incident and a review by the prosecuting attorney found that Ellison had acted in self-defense.

“Despite that finding,” Hodges said in the video, “Schweikle’s family hired a California attorney who filed a lawsuit. A six-day trial was held in Little Rock. A jury found that the officer who shot Schweikle acted lawfully … The California attorney is now asking city taxpayers to pay him and his clients $32 million.”

Geragos questioned the timing of Miller’s order and noted that Miller had made comments during the trial that may have foreshadowed his third dismissal of the case.

“He said he vehemently disagreed with the Eighth Circuit and he suspected some emotional law clerk had written the two opinions reversing him,” Geragos said. “I did suspect then we would have to go back up to the Eighth Circuit, and we plan on doing exactly that … It’s very disheartening that once again he’s taken away this case and not allowed [the city] to be held accountable.”