Exactly three years after a Little Rock police officer shot and killed an 18-year-old breaking-and-entering suspect after a lengthy foot chase that began near Forest Heights Middle School, the mother of the slain man, Kenzell Hobbs, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court.
On behalf of herself and Hobbs' brother, Spencer Hobbs, and sister, Dericka Dunlap, Sharon Betts sued officer Stephen Gorbet, alleging he used excessive force, and sued the city and former Police Chief Stuart Thomas, alleging they failed to train and discipline officers and maintained "a custom of excessive force."
The prosecuting attorney's office later cleared Gorbet of wrongdoing in the shooting.
According to the lawsuit, someone called police at 5:40 a.m. April 25, 2013, to report seeing two or three men walking around a parking lot near North Pierce Street looking into vehicles.
An officer who arrived a short time later saw a gold Ford Explorer on the lot with an opened passenger door, keys in the ignition and possibly stolen electronic equipment inside. A check of the Explorer's license plate showed it had been stolen two days earlier in North Little Rock.
As officers began to check other vehicles to see whether they'd been broken into, they heard four or five shots, and additional officers were dispatched.
Meanwhile, the officers searching the Explorer found a 9mm handgun and a hand-held radio.
The lawsuit notes that a nearby Lee Avenue resident called police at 6:05 a.m. to report seeing a man in her yard who appeared to be hiding and reported that the man was walking toward Woodlawn Avenue.
Officers searching the Explorer then realized they could hear suspects talking through the hand-held radio about the police being close. As the search intensified, more officers, including Gorbet, arrived. Another officer reported at 7:11 a.m. that one of the suspects, Ray Boles, was in custody and that he had carried a hand-held radio.
Officers soon saw Hobbs, also carrying a hand-held radio, at University Avenue and H Street. Another officer scuffled with Hobbs, but soon radioed that the man, with a pistol in the waistband of his pants, was headed toward the school, according to the narrative.
Gorbet then saw Hobbs run out of a wooded area and chased him, ordering Hobbs to drop the weapon and get on the ground, but Hobbs turned and fired several times, according to the narrative. It says Gorbet then fired four or five shots, and Hobbs kept running, disappearing into a thick area of brush.
As other officers moved into the area, Gorbet indicated he saw Hobbs move. Gorbet later said that after Hobbs refused to show his hands, and as other officers converged on the area, Gorbet fired into the brush where Hobbs was hiding "to eliminate the threat."
After Hobbs called out that he was injured and needed help, officers pulled him out of the brush, saw a gunshot wound in his lower back and had him transported to UAMS Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 9:20 a.m., according to the lawsuit.
The suit, filed on the family's behalf by attorney Tyson Spradlin of Little Rock, contends that Gorbet used "unnecessary and unreasonable" force that caused "great injury, pain and death."
The shooting was the second time that Gorbet had used deadly force on the job, police said.
The lawsuit, assigned to U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr., demands a jury trial and seeks unspecified compensatory damages.
Metro on 04/27/2016