LITTLE ROCK — The state Claims Commission has awarded $2.7 million to the estate of a woman who was killed in a collision with an Arkansas State Police trooper’s vehicle.
Norman Hodges, director of the commission, which made the decision Thursday afternoon, said “90 percent of the negligence was assigned to the [former] trooper,” Andrew Rhew, who was traveling at 103 mph in a 45 mph zone without his lights or sirens activated on the morning of Nov. 3, 2009.
Hodges said the rest of the blame was assigned to Vickie Freemyer, 52, because she rolled through the stop sign at Fleeman Street and onto Arkansas 77 in Manila.
Rhew was responding to a call of a person with an outstanding warrant in Osceola at the time of the crash. Before the collision, Rhew began to brake, and was traveling 87 mph one tenth of a second before impact, according to the filing with the commission.
Freemyer died at the scene.
In May 2011, Rhew negotiated a no-contest plea to one count of misdemeanor negligent homicide in Mississippi County Circuit Court.
Later that month, State Police Director J.R. Howard fired Rhew.
The State Police Commission voted unanimously to reinstate the trooper in July 2011, but he resigned that September after he was arrested in Dunklin County, Mo., on a charge of driving while intoxicated.
Howard retired in August.
Blytheville attorney Robert Coleman filed the case with the commission on Jan. 6 of this year, seeking $8 million for Freemyer’s estate.
Coleman said he made the $8 million request to the commission, which is not limited by specific amounts, based on the awards in other wrongful-death cases.
“Surely no amount of money for one’s loved one is enough,” Coleman said.
In the filings, Coleman wrote that a Troop C dispatcher sent the trooper to respond to the call in Osceola even though it was a 24-mile trip and “officers from the Osceola Police Department and Mississippi County Sheriff’s Office were much closer.”
According to witness statements and crash data, Freemyer “slowed her vehicle in a manner consistent with looking both ways before crossing the intersection,” the filing states.
After the crash, Rhew called in to a police dispatcher that he had been in “one hell of an accident” and that “this ole gal is probably dead.”
“Yeah, she pulled right out in front of the f++++++ vehicle and I T-boned her smoother than dog s+++,” Rhew is quoted telling the dispatcher in the filing with the Claims Commission.
A spokesman for the state police directed questions to the state attorney general’s office, which represented the agency in the hearing.
Aaron Sadler, a spokesman for the attorney general’s office, said in a statement that “we will consult with our clients as to what our next steps will be.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 11/17/2012