BELLE PLAINE, Canada (AP) – The dashcam video captured a horrific scene: a Kansas sheriff’s deputy in a patrol truck dropping a black man running shirtless through a field in the dark of the summer after fleeing a traffic stop.
Lionel Womack, a 35-year-old former police detective from Kansas City, Kansas, alleges in an excessive force lawsuit filed Thursday that he suffered serious injuries when Kiowa County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Rodriguez drove him intentionally during the August 15 meeting.
Womack said in a statement that he had not been speeding nor was he under the influence of anything when he was initially arrested. His driver’s license, insurance and registration were updated.
“When the first officer turned on the lights, I stopped and complied … exactly as I was supposed to. But when three additional vehicles quickly stopped and started circling my car, I got scared. That’s when I took off, it was a time of “fight or flight” and I was going to live, “he said.” I felt in danger. This was out of the country, late at night, and it was dark. “I ran for my life. That’s what you see in the control camera video. I’m running in an open field and I’m scared.”
The graphic video is the focal point of the federal civil rights case filed by attorney Michael Kuckelman against the U.S. District Court deputy in Kansas. The lawsuit argues that Rodriguez used excessive force and was “indifferent” to Womack’s civil rights.
Womack had left the police department in early August in hopes of growing his own security business. When he was returning home from a business trip to California, when a Kansas Highway Patrol officer in West Kansas began a chase for “an alleged traffic violation,” according to the lawsuit. Pratt County and Kiowa County Sheriff’s deputies joined the chase.
The chase of the car finally ended up on a dirt road and Womack took off on foot through a nearby farm field.
Images from the control camera of the vehicle of a deputy sheriff in Pratt County show that Rodriguez was using his patrol truck to catch up with Womack, who was unarmed.
Rodriguez turns his truck around to hit Womack, causing him to fall to the ground and run over him. Womack gets out from under the truck, with his arms and legs sprouting to the ground as someone in the video yells, “Stretch, stretch.” A deputy from the second patrol truck can be heard uttering an explosion as he watches what happens.
Womack alleges in his lawsuit that he suffered serious injuries to his back, pelvis and thigh, as well as his right knee, ankle and foot.
“The video from the control camera is disturbing,” Kuckelman said. “It’s impossible to see a video of a deputy driving his truck over Mr. Womack without feeling bad. There was nowhere to go to Mr. Womack. It was an open field and he was trapped, yet the deputy drove the truck on him anyway ”.
Neither Kiowa County Sheriff Chris Tedder nor his attorney have responded to requests for comment from the Associated Press. No one has explained why Rodriguez chose to defeat Womack. The deputy’s career is unclear.
Kuckelman urged Tedder in person and in letters to fire Rodriguez, and the sheriff has refused. Rodriguez continues to patrol. Kuckelman also wants Rodriguez to be criminally charged and has accused the sheriff of hiding from the deputy’s conduct.
Four months later, Womack remains jailed for felony counts of attempting to evade a police officer by reckless driving and interfering with a police officer. Judicial records show that he is also charged with several traffic offenses for delicate offenses, including failure to drive in the right lane of a four-lane road, inadequate signaling and traffic without headlights.
Zee Womack said her husband is still in jail due to an extradition request unrelated to Oklahoma. Online court records show that Lionel Womack was charged in Texas County, Oklahoma, with endangering other people while evading or attempting to evade police on August 12, just days before his meeting with police officers. the police in Kansas.
Records show Womack was arrested by a police officer in the city of Tyrone, less than five miles south of the Kansas state line.
Womack comes from a police family. His wife and mother are police officers in the Kansas City, Kansas Police Department. His stepfather retired from the job of sergeant there. Two aunts are police officers.
Zee Womack saw the video of her husband being run over for the first time on Wednesday, playing it four times as she struggled to understand why the deputy felt justified in using that force. Her husband is lucky to be alive, she said.
“I am also a police officer, and I feel especially special at this time which is a really difficult time to be a police officer. I guess we don’t always get the support that would be useful in this job, “he said shortly after watching the video. “And that makes it a lot harder to be an officer.”
He said an officer capable of making such decisions should have no badge.
“To me it showed a blatant disregard for human life,” he said. Zee Womack filed a federal lawsuit last year alleging “rampant racism and sexism” in the Kansas City, Kansas police department.
Lionel Womack said in his statement that most police officers are good and that he believes in the “blue brotherhood.”
“But we have to hold law enforcement accountable when they cross the line,” he said. “These rogue police officers give a good name to good officers and we have to stop them. I never imagined I would ever be a victim.” “Excessive force by another police officer. He could have killed me easily.”