The family of a Michigan teenager shot to death by a police officer filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the cop this week, saying he repeatedly violated the boy’s civil rights during a traffic stop that ended with the victim shot seven times in a roadside snowbank.
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The lawsuit, which was filed on Wednesday against Eaton County Sheriff’s Sgt. Jonathan Frost and the county, states that the officer was driving a new patrol vehicle on February 28 that had “improperly bright or misaimed headlights, even on low beams”. It ends with a dizzying tumble of images and the sound of gunshots that killed the young driver.
Guilford had been driving to his girlfriend’s house after playing basketball at his church when he encountered Frost, prompting him to flash his brights at the officer to get him to dim his lights. The lawsuit seeks a jury trial.
Frost later writes in a narrative account of the stop submitted as part of the police incident report that he thought that in light of Guilford’s challenges, the teen may have calling in reinforcements from a local “sovereign citizen or militia movement”.
After telling the teen to put his hands behind his back, the officer shot him with a Taser, but the stun gun either did not work or did not disable Guilford.
Frost pulled the teen over and turned on his body camera before exiting his vehicle, multiple accounts of the traffic stop show.
Guilford had apparently asked for the officer’s badge number and questioned why he had been stopped – actions that were within his rights to demand. I’m not lying to you.
For Guilford’s family, “it’s a permanent cloud over the sun and every day is a cloudy day”, Davis said.
“You flashed me with your high beams”, Frost says, to which Guilford replies, “you had your high beams on”.
Davis said that Frost had no reason to arrest the teen that night. “I didn’t want you to flash someone and have someone go off the road and crash”. Guilford makes a phone call and begins to record the interaction on his own cell phone camera.
“This incident is a tragedy for everyone involved, certainly for the Guilford family, but also for Jon Frost and all the men and women of the Eaton County Sheriff’s Office and the entire Eaton County community”.
He refused Frost’s orders to drop the phone, and the officer kicked it from his hand.
Frost pulled Guilford from the vehicle and ordered him to lie on his stomach next to his vehicle.
Pictures taken at Sparrow Hospital after the shooting, included in the prosecutor’s report, show Frost with streaks of blood running down his face.
In Michigan, Sheriff Tom Reich said he stood by Frost, the findings of the prosecutor and an internal review that concluded he acted reasonably and did not violate department rules.
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“Deven’s tragic and totally unnecessary death represents a disturbing trend of demanding 100% compliance with police authority, coupled with zero tolerance of risk of harm to police officers”, Cynthia Heenan of Constitutional Litigation Associates P.C., a Detroit law firm specializing in police misconduct litigation and representing the Guilford family, said in a statement.
