JONESBORO, Ark., (Oct. 23) – Theresa Rudd wants answers. More specifically, she wants to know the truth as to how her son, 21-year-old Chavis Carter, died and she’s willing to go to court to find out.
Nearly one year after Carter was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head, Rudd filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Jonesboro, Arkansas; as well as Keith Baggett and Ronald Marsh, the two police officers present when Carter was shot and Jonesboro police chief Michael Yates.
Arkansas officials claim Carter shot himself on the night of July 28, 2012 while sitting in the back of a police cruiser – and with his hands cuffed and double-locked behind his back.
An initial investigation by the Jonesboro police determined that Carter committed suicide. Yates said Marsh was reprimanded and temporarily suspended for failing to properly search Carter. He has since been reinstated. The internal investigation found no wrongdoing on the part of the other officer, Keith Baggett, Yates said.
Statements from eyewitnesses, text messages, video and physical evidence established that Baggett didn’t violate any policy or procedure. “Based upon these facts and circumstances I made the decision to return them to active duty status,” Yates told The Associated Press in an email.
“I’m so mad. I’m hurt,” Rudd told WREG TV. “I have accepted the fact that he’s gone. But I want to know what happened.”
Ursula Holmes of The Cochran Firm filed the case in the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Rudd’s complaint alleges that two white men in the truck with Carter that night were given “a pass” by the officers and released, even though drug paraphernalia was found in the vehicle. One officer reportedly said if they told him about any “weed” in the truck, he would make it “disappear,” the complaint says. That same officer is heard on a dash cam video saying, “If you come back this way, I won’t help you again.”
The complaint also alleges:
- The officers found a plastic bag in the truck containing a “white substance” and only question Carter about its contents. Carter denies any knowledge of the bag and asks officers to fingerprint the bag.
- Despite being a “few feet” away from the police car, the two officers claimed that neither heard the gunshot that took Carter‘s life.
- One of the officers admittedly picked up the gun reportedly used in Carter’s death. But once a fingerprint analysis was done, there were no fingerprints on the weapon. Not the officer’s. Not Carter‘s.
- Carter was alive when officers found him in the back of the squad car and that one of the officers used his personal cell phone to take at least four pictures of Carter while he “was still breathing.“
- In their initial police reports, both Baggett and Marsh stated they each called dispatch and requested an ambulance because they saw Carter was still alive. Marsh said he took the pictures for “documentation.”
- After Carter was found in the back seat, the police car was washed down, destroying any evidence needed for further or an outside investigation, and almost immediately put back into service.
- Once Carter was transported to the hospital, “members of the Jonesboro Police Department ordered all hospital personnel out of the room and remained alone with Chavis Carter’s body for an unknown period of time.”
- One of the officers, Ronald Marsh, was in possession of an audio recording device “used to record” all his “interactions with individuals with whom he made contact” with that night. But Marsh claims the memory card for the device was “lost” somewhere between the scene of Carter’s death and the police station which is only about a mile apart.
Jonesboro Police have declined to comment on the allegations raised in the lawsuit.
Benjamin Irwin, another attorney from The Cochran Firm, said, “We had numerous witness statements and we were chasing down all the stories being told.” He went on to say, “And we tried to completely uncover as much information as we could pursuing different options and hiring our own team of experts to review the autopsy findings.”
The JPD released a video of a re-creation of the incident. It showed several officers – of differing heights and weights – in the back of a police car putting a gun to their head while handcuffed. But Irwin is skeptical, saying it was “one of the best stunts” he’d ever seen.
Footage from the officer’s dash cam video would have dispelled any questions regarding Carter’s death. But Jonesboro police admit the camera failed to function for 10 minutes during the incident and when it became operative again – Chavis Carter was dead.
But the JPD is on record as saying officers Baggett and Marsh do not deny that the dash cam was off. But they disagree that it was “intentional.”
Sgt. Lyle Waterworth, of the JPD, explained the camera mishap in a statement saying the two officers were driving older patrol cars “that have had functional issues with their video/computer systems for some time.”
The JPD said comments from bystanders that night, appear to indicate that Marsh and Baggett, “were not near the car until Chavis was discovered,” and that evidence in the vehicle supported a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“This virtually eliminates any possibility that the fatal wound was caused by any weapon other than the one recovered in the rear of the vehicle and that its discharge was caused by Carter,” Waterworth said in a statement.
Based on this, attorneys for the police have asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit Rudd filed against them.
“There’s a lack of legal liability based on the facts of this case,” C. Burt Newell told TheGrio. “This case was exhaustively investigated before I was even aware of it, and my hoped outcome is the case against my clients will be dismissed.”
Newell said he has not filed a formal Motion To Dismiss in the case. But according to a clerk in the United States District Court, Eastern Arkansas, Jonesboro Division, Judge Kristin Baker has set the proposed trial date for December 2014. The monetary amount of damages Rudd is seeking is not noted in the Complaint.
The complaints against Jonesboro and the police officers are lengthy and detailed. In addition to the issues and allegations already cited, Holmes lists numerous instances where it is alleged that police were negligent. Specifically:
- Carter was removed from the vehicle and searched without cause.
Around 10 p.m., Baggett pulled over a white pick up truck that was traveling north on Haltom Avenue. Baggett later said in his incident report that he was called to the area because of a “suspicious white truck that was seen driving up and down the area with it’s≠ lights off.” The truck was driven by a then 17-year-old minor, while another man, 21-year-old Timothy Andrew Teal, was seated next to him. Both are white. Only Carter – who is black – was pulled from the passenger seat with allegedly no discussion as to why he was being removed from the truck. Carter is searched by Marsh and placed in the back of his police car.
- Carter was not informed why he was being detained.
After reportedly receiving information from dispatch as to Carter’s identity (Carter initially gave officers a fake name, Laryan Bowman), Marsh removes Carter from the police cruiser and searches him again stating only “Mississippi wants you.” Carter reportedly has an outstanding warrant from Desoto County for an earlier drug possession.
- Search of Carter was improper, he was not read his “Miranda” rights.
Holmes said dash cam video shows that neither officer Mirandized Carter, or advised him of his legal rights before he was interrogated, questioned or searched. Carter did not agree to the searches, and they were both negligent in that the officer failed to find a cell phone or a gun on Carter.
- Officers failed to protect Carter.
Carter died while in police custody. Jonesboro Police admits there is “no doubt that Officer Marsh missed the gun during the initial pat down of Carter,” Waterworth said in a statement. Jonesboro Police officer Ron Marsh was reprimanded for failing to conduct a through search
Holmes said it appears Baggett and Marsh gave preferential treatment to the two white passengers in the truck even though she believes the officers had legal cause to take them into custody.
“There is some conversation about the white substance found,” Holmes said referring to the dash cam video. “The officers don’t think that it was an actual narcotic, although there was a scale also found in the vehicle. So they had grounds. Although the basis for the search itself was questionable, once they found the white substance and the scales, they arguably had a reason to detain the two boys. But they didn’t. They let them go.”
At 10:41 p.m., a dash cam video shows Teal and the minor leaving the scene in the white truck. Prior to their release, one of the officers says: “[Carter’s] going to jail because he’s got something out of Mississippi that has nothing to do with y’all.”
“I didn’t buy this story from the beginning,” Rudd told WREG TV. “I don’t give two rats…about the money. I want to know what happened to my son.”
Holmes, a veteran attorney from Mound Bayou, Miss., practicing in Memphis, said her objective in this case is to find out what happened to Carter and help his mother cope with her loss.
“She is incredibly angry,” Holmes said. “She doesn’t know how to process this. And every time I see her, I have to put my arms around her because I just hate that she has to go through this. But she’s a fighter. She really is. And even if we’re successful in this lawsuit there’s a very good possibility that we might not be able to tell her what happened to her son and she’ll still have to deal with that.”