Kansas Sheriff’s Deputy Accused Of Deliberately Running Over Black Former Detective

A for­mer police detec­tive from Kansas has filed an exces­sive force law­suit alleg­ing that he sus­tained seri­ous injuries when a Kiowa County Sheriff’s Deputy inten­tion­al­ly drove over him.

Lionel Womack said in a state­ment that he had not been speed­ing nor was he under the influ­ence when he was pulled over in a traf­fic stop by Jeremy Rodriguez.

Mr Womack, who is Black, says despite this, and even though his dri­ver’s licence, insur­ance, and vehi­cle reg­is­tra­tion were up to date, he pan­icked and fled.

A graph­ic dash­cam video cap­tured the series of hor­rif­ic events that unfold­ed next as the patrol truck mowed him down, as he ran shirt­less across a field on the night of 15 August.

“When the first offi­cer turned his lights on, I pulled over and com­plied … exact­ly as you’re sup­posed to. But when three addi­tion­al vehi­cles pulled up quick­ly and start­ed to sur­round my car, I freaked out. That’s when I took off, it was a ‘fight or flight’ moment and I was going to live,” he said.

“I felt like I was in dan­ger. This was out in the coun­try, late at night, and it was dark. So I ran for my life. That’s what you see in the dash­cam video. I’m run­ning in an open field, and I’m scared.”

The video is the cru­cial piece of evi­dence in the fed­er­al civ­il rights case filed by attor­ney Michael Kuckelman against the deputy in the US District Court in Kansas.

In the law­suit, Mr Kuckelman argues that Deputy Rodriguez used exces­sive force and was “cal­lous­ly indif­fer­ent” to Mr Womack’s civ­il rights.

Mr Womack had left the police depart­ment ear­li­er in August with hopes of build­ing up his own secu­ri­ty busi­ness. He was on his way home from a busi­ness trip to California when a Highway Patrol offi­cer in west­ern Kansas ini­ti­at­ed a chase over “an alleged traf­fic vio­la­tion”, accord­ing to the lawsuit.

Sheriff’s deputies from Pratt County and Kiowa County joined in the chase, which even­tu­al­ly end­ed on a dirt road. Mr Womack then took off on foot across a near­by field.

The dash­cam footage from a Pratt County sher­if­f’s deputy’s vehi­cle shows Mr Rodriguez using his patrol truck to catch up to Mr Womack, who was unarmed.

The deputy appar­ent­ly swerves the truck to hit Mr Womack, knock­ing him to the ground and run­ning over him.

Mr Womack rolls out from under the truck, his arms and legs flail­ing on the ground as some­one on the video shouts at him to lie down.

A deputy in the sec­ond patrol truck is heard to utter an exple­tive as he watch­es what is happening.

The law­suit alleges that Mr Womack sus­tained seri­ous injuries to his back, pelvis, and thigh, as well as to his right knee, ankle, and foot.

Commenting on the dis­turb­ing footage, Mr Kuckelman said: “It is impos­si­ble to watch a video of a deputy dri­ving his truck over Mr Womack with­out feel­ing sick. There was nowhere for Mr Womack to go. It was an open field, and he was trapped, yet the deputy drove his truck over him anyway.”

Neither Kiowa County Sheriff Chris Tedder nor his attor­ney respond­ed to a request for com­ment by the Associated Press.

Mr Kuckelman has urged Sheriff Tedder in per­son and in let­ters to fire Mr Rodriguez, but he has refused and the deputy remains on patrol. The attor­ney also wants Mr Rodriguez charged crim­i­nal­ly and has accused the sher­iff of engag­ing in a cov­er-up of the deputy’s conduct.

Four months lat­er, Mr Womack remains in jail on felony charges of attempt­ing to elude a law enforce­ment offi­cer by engag­ing in reck­less dri­ving and inter­fer­ence with a law enforce­ment officer.

Court records show he is also charged with sev­er­al mis­de­meanour traf­fic cita­tions, includ­ing fail­ure to dri­ve in the right lane on a four-lane high­way, improp­er sig­nalling, and dri­ving with­out headlights.

Mr Womack comes from a fam­i­ly entrenched in local law enforce­ment. His wife and his moth­er are police offi­cers with the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. His step­fa­ther retired from police work as a sergeant there, and two of his aunts are police dispatchers.

After watch­ing the video, his wife, Officer Zee Womack said she strug­gled to under­stand why the deputy felt jus­ti­fied in using such force and that her hus­band is lucky to be alive.

At a time when it is not easy to be in law enforce­ment, she said “this makes it a lot more dif­fi­cult to be an officer”.

She added that some­one capa­ble of mak­ing a deci­sion such as Mr Rodriguez did should not have a badge, say­ing: “To me it showed a bla­tant dis­re­gard for human life.”

Ms Womack filed a fed­er­al law­suit last year alleg­ing “ram­pant racism and sex­ism” in her own police department.

In his state­ment, Mr Womack said he believes that most police offi­cers are good, but that law enforce­ment must be held account­able “when they cross the line”.

“I nev­er imag­ined that I would some­day be the vic­tim of exces­sive force by a fel­low law enforce­ment offi­cer. He could have eas­i­ly killed me.”