Here’s coverage from St. Louis of arguments before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in which Little Rock cops are trying to get dimissed from a lawsuit over the shooting death of Eugene Ellison, 67, in his Little Rock apartment.
David Koon laid out in fine detail earlier this week the case the plaintiffs’ lawyers have made about Ellison’s needless death at hands of officers working security who went into the open door of his apartment, got an angry reaction and finally shot him. The officers, Donna Lesher and Tabitha McCrillis, are claiming immunity from suit, brough by Ellison’s sons, one a Little Rock cop, the other a former Little Rock cop. In this case, white police killed a black man who was unarmed.
“We want the same things as the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner,” said Spencer Ellison, invoking the names of people killed by police in nearby Ferguson, Missouri, and in New York, whose deaths have sparked worldwide protests and intense debates over police powers. “We just want answers. And we want accountability.”
The report indicates City Attorney Tom Carpenter was met with skeptical questioning when he defended the officers’ warrantless entry into the apartment as justified by a “community caretaker” exemption. He said the officers were “looking out for the welfare of a citizen.” He ended up dead as a result.
The apartment complex is also a defendant with the two officers, but other city defendants were dismissed by Judge Brian Miller.