A federal appeals court allowed the lawsuit over a 2023 fatal shooting by Lansing police to proceed, overturning part of a judge’s decision last year to dismiss the case.
The 2-1 decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, released on Nov. 18, cleared the way for litigation over an excessive force claim, but upheld the dismissal of other counts included in the lawsuit Ashley Romero filed weeks after police killed her husband, 33-year-old Stephen Romero.
Scott Bean, a spokesperson for the city, and Jordan Gulkis, a spokesperson for the Lansing Police Department, declined to comment. A message was left seeking comment from attorneys for the Romero family.
Lansing police officers shot and killed Romero around 11:27 p.m. Dec. 1, 2023, outside a home in the 1600 block of Massachusetts Avenue. They had been dispatched to the house for a call about a domestic assault in progress, and were told on the way that a woman had been shot.
Days after the shooting, police released some body camera footage which the department said was “limited” and showed a “brief account” of what happened. Police also said the woman hadn’t been shot but 911 audio confirmed that officers were told that information on the way to the house.
Officers shot Romero after he was on his knees and had lifted up his shirt to reveal a firearm in his waistband. The video showed him placing his right hand on or near the gun before the video cut out. A second round of gunshots after Romero had fallen to the ground played a central role in the appellate decision.
The lawsuit, filed in December 2023, accused officers, the city and LPD of unlawful use of force, saying Romero’s actions were “slow and undisguised” and that he was complying with officers. The suit adds that “reasonable” officers would not have seen Romero as a threat and would not have used force.
In September 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Hala Jarbou granted the city’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit. Attorneys for the city had argued that the lawsuit’s claims were “without merit,” that officers are protected by qualified immunity and that Romero’s family could not prove a Fourth Amendment violation, which protects people from excessive force or unlawful searches and seizures.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office determined the shooting was justified.
In weighing the appeal filed by Ashley Romero’s attorneys, Judge Kevin Ritz of the Sixth Circuit focused on the two rounds of shots that officers fired, with the second coming after Romero “fell face down to his elbows, yelling in pain.”
Judge Karen Moore concurred with Ritz’s opinion. Judge Richard Allen Griffin dissented on the excessive force ruling and wrote a separate opinion.
“When Officers (Donovan) Moore and (Jeff) Kurtz opened fire the second time, Stephen was already wounded and, by that point, lay on the ground, on his stomach and elbows,” Ritz wrote. “He was no longer a threat to Ashly, who was outside his reach or line of sight, and any effort to draw and point his gun at the officers would have required significant contortion of his body.”
While on the ground, Romero “managed to grasp his gun and slide it away from his body, out of his reach,” Ritz wrote.
Griffin, in his dissenting opinion, wrote that Moore and Kurtz are entitled to qualified immunity and cited Romero’s effort, after being shot, to reach for the gun as evidence that their use of force was reasonable.
He said the court’s decision “endangers the lives of all law enforcement officers in the Sixth Circuit.”
“It egregiously misapplies the law of self-defense and qualified immunity to the extent that few, if any, police officers would voluntarily assume such a high level of personal risk and potential financial liability,” Griffin wrote of the majority opinion.
Contact reporter Matt Mencarini at mjmencarini@lsj.com.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Federal appeals court revives lawsuit over fatal Lansing police shooting
Reporting by Matt Mencarini, Lansing State Journal / Lansing State Journal
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