Judge vacates $32M judgment against BNPD

US District Judge Brian Miller vacated the $32 million verdicts against the Benton Police Department and former Police Chief Kirk Lane on Tuesday.

The $32 million was awarded on Feb. 5 by an 11-person jury to the parents of 17-year-old Keagan Schweikle who was killed by a Benton Police officer in 2016.

But on Tuesday, Judge Miller granted the motion for judgment submitted by the city of Benton and its former police chief. “The verdicts entered against them are vacated, and all claims against them are dismissed with prejudice,” the order stated.

“We’ve known all along that Keagan Schweikle’s death was a terrible tragedy. While our hearts continue to go out to his family, the jury found that there was no wrongdoing on the part of the officer,” according to a statement from Mayor Tom Farmer and the Municipal League, which was released Wednesday.

“We are very thankful for yesterday’s ruling from Judge Miller vacating the judgments against the City of Benton and former Chief Kirk Lane. The ruling simply applied longstanding federal law and corrected a portion of the jury’s verdict that went against that law. Even though the jury’s legal error has been corrected, the City of Benton will continue to learn from this tragedy and grow as a department for the citizens it is sworn to protect,” the statement read.

Judge Miller’s order stated that the city and Lane could not be held liable for Schweikle’s death because there was no underlying violation of the teenager’s rights. The judge cites five cases supporting his decision, including Smith v. Kilgore (2019) in which a lawsuit by the mother of a man fatally shot by police was dismissed because there was no constitutional violation by an individual officer and the fact that the dead man began to raise his gun toward officers would alone justify deadly force.

During the trial, officers

testified that Schweikle moved his gun before he was shot.

“Judge Miller made the right decision and corrected the jury’s error,” Benton Police Chief Scotty Hodges said in a statement released through the

Benton Area Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. “I have had many of you reach out to me and the thoughts and prayers were answered and appreciated.”

Hodges had released a Youtube video discussing the trial and verdict on Monday.

“I know there has been a lot of concern after

the jury’s verdict in the Keagan Schweikle case from 2016 in Benton. Shock might be a better word to use; maybe confused. I know I was certainly confused when I heard the verdict announced by Judge Brian Miller,” Hodges said. “I was confused because the jury found in favor of former Benton Police Officer Kyle Ellison, now ASP Trooper Ellison, that the use of force was justified in self-defense. However, the jury found in favor of the plaintiffs against the City of Benton and Chief of Police for failure to train and investigate.

“We decided a couple of weeks ago to release a video, letting the public

know of the verdict, what all has taken place and what the city and AR Municipal League were doing about it.

“Coincidently, and the news I wanted to share with all of you, hours after releasing our video, Judge Miller granted our motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and vacated the verdicts against the City of Benton and former Chief Kirk Lane.

“Although we knew this was going to take place, the anticipation, wanting it to happen already, was getting the best of me,” Hodges said.

The jury’s verdict came after a weeklong federal trial in Little Rock. They found the city of Benton liable for $30 million, $15 million for failure to train its officers, and $15 million for failure to investigate the fatal shooting. Former Benton Police Chief Kirk Lane was found liable for $1 million for failure to train his officers and another $1 million for failing to investigate the fatal shooting.

However, the jury returned a verdict in favor of former Benton Police Officer Kyle Ellison, who fired the fatal shots, finding that he neither used excessive force nor battered or assaulted Schweikle.

Attorneys representing the City and Lane requested a that Judge Miller dismiss the jury’s verdict.

Gabrielle Gibson of the Arkansas Municipal League argued that insufficient evidence was provided in court to support the claims of failure to train and failure to investigate, considering the jury’s findings regarding excessive force and assault and battery claims against Ellison, who fired the fatal shots.

The plaintiffs, Piper Partridge and Dominic Schweikle, Keagan’s parents, are represented by attorneys Mark Geragos and Richard Holliman. On March 25, they filed their response to the city, opposing its request to have the verdicts dismissed.

“As this Court cogently

and somewhat prophetically ruled on January the 22nd, Plaintiffs have waited almost eight years for resolution of this tragedy. On February 5, 2024, the jury ruled on all the general verdicts presented to them after hearing all the evidence and receiving multiple instructions. Now, the defense basically wants a judicial ‘do over’ not only on the evidence at trial, but concerning theories postverdict that they never raised. The defense never asked for a special verdict and declined a special interrogatory and now misstates the law, the facts, and the record in a desperate attempt to shirk the jury verdict. We respectfully urge this Court to reject this Hail Mary and uphold the verdict delivered by a unanimous jury,” the response states.

Using testimony from the trial as evidence, Partridge’s attorneys argue that evidence is sufficient for the penalties placed on the city and Lane.

“Detective Chris Benham, who had been with the BPD for two years and in the criminal investigation unit for approximately six months at the time of the incident, was appointed to handle the criminal investigation of Officer Ellison,” they write.

When asked about former Chief Kirk Lane’s decision to investigate internally rather than turning it over to the state police, Detective Benham replied “...that’s the way all officer-involved shootings were handled at the time.” It was revealed during that trial that during his investigation, Benham did not look into Ellison’s history nor did he “talk to his wife, or attempt to locate any of his friends in an attempt to understand Officer Ellison’s state of mind at the time of the shooting,” as it was stated during trial. It was also revealed that during the investigation officers focused on Keagan by obtaining records for incidents that had occurred three years prior in a different state and also interviewed his family, school staff, and exgirlfriend. Piper was interviewed for over an hour the day after the shooting and Ellison wasn’t interviewed until about 10 days after the shooting. That interview lasted for around 10 minutes.

The plaintiffs reference to testimony of Lt. Patrick Baker as well, who was responsible for the internal affairs investigation of Ellison.

“He testified that he did not have full knowledge of Officer Ellison’s use of force history, specifically that Officer Ellison had an incident with a minor less than a year prior,” the document reads. “Lieutenant Baker acknowledged that had he “known about it, it would have been good to look at, yes.”

An incident was referenced during the trial when Officer Ellison shot a dog and was hit by a bullet from his gun, Lt. Baker testified there were no professional standards investigation regarding that incident, but once Geragos pointed out during the trial that an officer was shot during the incident, Baker said they do investigate incidents when officers are shot, but they did not investigate that one. They also state that the BNPD’S policy for internal investigations was over 20 years old at the time of the investigation into this incident.

As for the failure to train, Geragos and Holiman reference the testimony of Lt. Terry Fuller who witnessed the incident. Fuller testified to his status as a crisis negotiator and that he was the only negotiator present at the scene. Fuller didn’t remember BNPD having any kind of formal mental health training or testing on the topic of mental health for officers seeking a promotion during his time with BNPD. Fuller was asked if there was a plan for how the Department would approach the situation and said there was never any mention of a plan.

“When asked if there was any discussion regarding what the officers planned to do when they reached Keagan and how they could disarm him, Lieutenant Fuller confirmed there was not. He never heard the word “plan” or any mention of a mental health professional on October 17, 2016,” the day Keagan was killed.