Fallon Frederick called Rogers police for protection. Minutes later, an officer shot and killed her.

“It’s hard in my mind to justify the shooting,” said Timothy Steven Parker, an attorney. “This woman didn’t have a bazooka, she had a knife.”

Parker represents Frederick’s ex-husband, Darrell Frederick, who filed a wrongful death lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas in July against Rogers, police Chief James Allen and officers Harold “Scott” Clifton, Nicholas Torkelson and Vence Motsinger.

Parker alleges the three Rogers officers used excessive and deadly force against Fallon Frederick. He and others say the use of force among Northwest Arkansas police departments is concerning. Law enforcement agencies have no state oversight, define “force” differently and track those incidents — or not — as they wish. That means there’s no way to get an overall picture of how much force police use against people.

Law enforcement officials say excessive use of force isn’t a problem among departments in Northwest Arkansas. Few residents have filed complaints against law enforcement officials in Benton or Washington counties in the past three years, according to records.

Frederick, 30, called police from a Rogers convenience store the morning of Aug. 1, 2011, saying she was being followed, according to police records. She then backed herself into a corner at the store and took out a 4-inch hunting knife. Video from the store captured the events that followed, with other details discovered in the subsequent investigation.

Frederick, a 109-pound woman with diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia, questioned the three officers about whether they were really police and demanded their badge numbers. Officers warned her if she didn’t drop the weapon, they would have to “Taser,” or stun her. The stun attempt failed, and Frederick bounded forward — toward police but also toward the door. An officer fired three shots.

Frederick died at the store.

Prosecutor Van Stone said the officers who shot Frederick were justified. Frederick came at the officers with a knife, he said in a 2011 news release. Rogers City Attorney Ben Lipscomb wouldn’t comment on the case except to say officials don’t think excessive force was used.

Lipscomb is providing information to the Arkansas Municipal League, which is defending the city in the lawsuit. A trial date has been set for Oct. 27, said John Wilkerson, league staff attorney.

Rogers police spokesman Keith Foster said the lawsuit is pending, so officers involved are unable to discuss the matter.

The knife Frederick had could have been deadly, said Thomas Aveni, executive director of the Police Policy Studies Council, a research-based, interdisciplinary training and consulting corporation.

“It sounds pretty clear cut,” Aveni said.

Police typically are trained not to allow people with knives any closer than about 35 feet. An average person can cover 21 feet in about 1.5 seconds, Aveni said. Frederick could have slashed an officer’s neck and struck an artery.

When police shot Frederick, she was only a couple of feet away, according to records released by Stone.

“You don’t let anyone get that close with a weapon,” Aveni said.

At the heart of the lawsuit is whether the officers were too aggressive when dealing with Frederick. Police used deadly force when they had training on how to disarm people and had alternatives, such as pepper spray, Parker said. The officers didn’t have to kill Frederick, he said.

Using Force

Northwest Arkansas law enforcement officials are supposed to use a “reasonable” amount of force in situations where a person is violent, an officer fears for his life or others, or a subject refuses to obey commands, according to policies from Rogers, Bentonville, Springdale, Fayetteville and Benton and Washington counties’ sheriff’s offices.

Rogers officers use only one level more force than the person passively or actively resisting, fleeing or fighting, Foster said. Most use of force comes during arrest, he said.

Few Northwest Arkansas officers have been reprimanded or have been found to have used too much force, according to records provided by police.

Each police department defines what is force and tracks the number of times force is used by which officer differently, making comparing departments difficult. Where instances of force are tracked, law enforcement officials are required to fill out forms showing why they used what kind of force. That can include instances where officers shoot an animal or use pressure points on someone resisting arrest.

Departments aren’t required under federal or state law to track instances, but most do. Both Fayetteville and Rogers are accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies. Those police departments must meet higher standards, including standards on how they define and track use of force to be accredited, Foster said.

Rogers started counting pointing a weapon as use of force in 2013, Foster said. Between January and November 2013, the department had about 26 incidents of where officers used force, he said.

Washington County Sheriff’s Office deputies had 27 use of force reports filed last year, documents show. The Benton County Sheriff’s Office doesn’t track use of force among its deputies, said Keshia Guyll, spokeswoman.

“We just don’t have a problem with it,” Guyll said.

Springdale police said 38 use of force reports were filed in 2013, but the department has changed what it considers use of force — meaning year to year numbers don’t compare and neither do other departments. Pointing a stun gun, for example, is no longer considered force. Using a stun gun is still considered force, said Derek Hudson, Springdale police spokesman.

Bentonville police had only four use of force reports for 2013, Capt. John Hubbard said. He said Bentonville’s number is low because the department stopped reporting some animal shootings last year.

Fayetteville reported its officers used force about 125 times last year. Fayetteville’s number is higher than other departments because officers police heavily attended events such as Bike, Blues & BBQ and Razorback football games, spokesman Craig Stout said in email.

The numbers between law agencies are simply not comparable, Foster said.

“You cannot get an apples to apples comparison until every department uses the same criteria,” Foster said. “You cannot realistically compare the numbers between the departments and get a fair comparison because we all use different standards.”

Police Aren’t ‘Thugs’

Excessive use of force cases are uncommon in Northwest Arkansas, said Doug Norwood, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney. Someone who resists arrest might be thrown to the ground and get bruised or cut, but that doesn’t mean the officer was excessive, Norwood said.

Excessive use of force must show unreasonable response by officers, police said. Departments investigate use of force among their officers and will reprimand them, they said.

“Officers are able to use force in defense of themselves or others,” Hudson said in email. “They may also use force to make an arrest or other lawful duty. They may only use the amount of force necessary.”

Departments that have reprimanded officers for using too much force include Springdale and Rogers, according to records.

In 2012, the Springdale Police Department reprimanded two officers for excessive use of force. Officer Tony Keck was suspended without pay for 10 days in August after he used a stun gun and arrested a man who refused to sit down. In September of the same year, officer Kristopher Arthur was suspended without pay for 10 days when he used pressure points and a stun gun on a prisoner who refused to sit on a bench.

Arthur is now police chief in Tontitown. Keck is an officer in Bethel Heights.

In 2012, two Rogers police officers violated the department’s use of force policy when they used their Taser guns at the same time. Foster said the officers didn’t realize the other was about to use his Taser.

Torkelson, who tried to stun Frederick and who Motsinger told investigators said, “Shoot, shoot, shoot” as Frederick rushed forward, used force more often than most of his fellow officers, according to a Rogers police document that combines use of force incidents by officers for 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Torkelson used force 11 times in three years. Most officers used force fewer than five times total, according to the police document. A further breakdown by year was not available, Foster said.

Motsinger left the Rogers police force in March 2012 and joined the Little Flock Police Department. He left there about six months ago, Chief Jesse Martinez said. Clifton remains a sergeant in the Rogers Police Department.

Northwest Arkansas police officers are not “thugs,” Norwood said. Police have a tough job and often deal with people who are on drugs or intoxicated, he said.

Foster said use of force among Northwest Arkansas law enforcement is low considering the volume of calls to which officers respond. Rogers police arrested 1,181 people between July and September of last year, according to previously released statistics. The department received 8,275 calls for service during that time. Totals for 2013 aren’t yet available, Foster said, but in 2012, the Rogers Police Department made 3,680 arrests.

No Oversight, No Complaints

Frederick’s family never filed a complaint with the Rogers Police Department about her death, Foster said. People often don’t want to complain about a policeman to another policeman, said Holly Dickson, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in Arkansas.

“People don’t complain if they don’t think anything will be done about it,” she said.

The U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division fielded two complaints by the same person against the Springdale Police Department between 2010 and 2013, said Nelson D. Hermilla, chief of the Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts Branch. The department refused to release any officer’s name, citing privacy concerns. The complaints haven’t been investigated, Hermilla said.

Rogers Police Department received three written complaints about officers between 2011 and 2013. One complaint was determined to be unfounded. Officers were exonerated in the other two complaints.

In Bentonville and Fayetteville, no written complaints were filed, police said. Benton County’s Sheriff’s Office doesn’t track written complaints.

The low number of complaints might mean few people trust the police enough to speak out, Dickson said. Complaints about police violating residents’ constitutional rights are “rampant” statewide, she said. Dickson said she also hears specifically from Northwest Arkansas residents who feel their rights were violated.

“We’re constantly having to turn away complaints about that because we are so small and the problem is so large,” Dickson said. No litigation brought by ACLU is pending that involves Northwest Arkansas law enforcement officials, Dickson said.

The problem is there’s no independent agency or group that includes law enforcement officials and residents to field complaints, she said.

Arkansans need a way to hold police accountable through a licensing committee or through a group that includes both law enforcement officials and civilians, Dickson said. That kind of group or committee would protect both residents and police officers, she said.

Law enforcement officials and Norwood said police don’t need an outside agency because they police themselves.

“There is no law enforcement agency in Northwest Arkansas that would allow an officer they know is using excessive force to remain on the force,” Norwood said.