FAYETTEVILLE -- A tentative settlement has been reached in a wrongful arrest lawsuit brought by a former Fayetteville High School student athlete against Centerton officials.
Terrance Rock sued Centerton and a number of police officers in Washington County Circuit Court in April alleging wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution, violation of due process, invasion of privacy and other state and federal civil rights claims. The case was subsequently moved to federal court.
Settlement conference
A meeting between opposing parties of a lawsuit at which the parties attempt to reach a mutually agreeable resolution of their dispute without having to proceed to a trial. The parties and their attorneys meet privately with a judge who hears both sides and tries to help them reach a compromise. Usually, the judge cannot make any decisions regarding the outcome, but will listen to each side giving a critique and advising what they would be likely to decide in court.
Source: uslegal.com
The sides met in a settlement conference Monday morning with Magistrate Erin Wiedemann and reached an agreement, according to Lance Cox, Rock's attorney.
"Mr. Rock can now move on with college, and life and put this matter behind him," Cox said via email Monday.
Terms of the settlement were not immediately available.
"Hopefully, what happened to Mr. Rock will not ever happen again -- at least not in Centerton, Arkansas," Cox wrote. "We believe Mr. Rock's case has brought some much needed change within the Centerton Police Department and has brought awareness to others in and outside the State of Arkansas. If so, it will likely reduce the number of false arrests that would have otherwise occurred, which is reason enough to have filed suit."
The Centerton City Council still has to approve the settlement and likely will take it up Wednesday night, according to Brian Rabal, attorney for Centerton.
"It's quite a bit less than the relief that they were demanding," Rabal said. "It's always a crap shoot if you take a thing in front of a jury. They say a good settlement is where everyone walks away not thoroughly satisfied, that's probably the case here."
Centerton officials filed an answer to the lawsuit in which they generally denied the allegations. Attorneys for officers Michael Stuart and Christopher William Cummings also filed answers denying the allegations.
Centerton Police arrested Rock at the school Nov. 15 in connection with residential burglary and theft of property, both felonies. He was released from the Benton County Jail the next day on a $10,000 bond. Rock, a senior running back, helped lead Fayetteville to the Class 7A football title.
Centerton Police Chief Cody Harper later acknowledged officers wrongfully arrested Rock and apologized in a Nov. 18 news release. Benton County Circuit Judge Robin Green dismissed the charges against Rock and sealed the case in early December.
The lawsuit was seeking $750,000 in damages on the due process claim and unspecified compensatory and exemplary damages on the other claims.
The arrest came from a Sept. 25 incident in which a Centerton man claimed three teens stole items from his home, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Police didn't interview Rock before they arrested him, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit contends Centerton police made little or no effort to make sure they were arresting the correct person and, according to the lawsuit, boasted Rock's arrest was a high-profile one that would receive media attention because he was a star football player.
Officers handcuffed Rock and escorted him out of the school to a waiting police car in front of students, teachers, staff and administrators, resulting in extreme embarrassment, fear, emotional distress, physical and mental anguish, harm and hardship, according to the lawsuit.
Police ignored Rock's protests he'd never been to Centerton and didn't know the teens accused of the break-in, according to the lawsuit. It wasn't until Cox and Benton County prosecutors investigated and confronted Centerton police with the identity of the person actually involved in the theft that they admitted they requested and obtained a warrant for the wrong person, according to the lawsuit. That individual clearly had a different name than Rock, according to the lawsuit.
Christopher Cummins, one of the officers involved, was fired 14 days after Rock's arrest.
In addition to Cummins, the lawsuit named Centerton, Harper, officer Patrick Stuart, and detectives Jeremiah Nicholson and Alex Wallace. They were named in both their individual and official capacities.
The lawsuit alleged gross negligence by the defendants for intentionally circumventing the Prosecutor's Office to obtain a warrant. The arrest affidavit wasn't sent to the prosecutor to be reviewed before Rock was arrested, according to the lawsuit.
It also claimed officers weren't trained, educated or supervised properly and the department had inadequate policies and procedures to make sure the correct person was being arrested.
The malicious prosecution claim contended there was no probable cause to arrest Rock and police knew or should have known they had the wrong person.
NW News on 08/22/2017