The Clark County sheriff’s deputy who shot an unarmed Black man he stopped over a bad tail light had previously shot at another motorist after a chase and a fight inside a stolen truck.
The 2018 encounter had some similarities to Deputy Sean Boyle’s confrontation with Jenoah Donald, a 30-year-old Clark County man who died after being shot in the head by Boyle in February 2021, according to records filed this month in U.S. District Court in Tacoma by lawyers for Donald’s family.
Donald’s family alleges that Donald was the subject of an “illegal ‘pre-textual stop.’”
When Boyle ordered Donald out of the car, Donald did not immediately get out, prompting Boyle to punch him in the face and try to drag him out, according to Donald’s family’s $17 million lawsuit.
The car began moving forward and Boyle fired twice on Donald, striking him once. Donald never regained consciousness and died eight days later at a hospital.
The latest legal filings in the case refer to the earlier case involving a man named Christopher Rollins, who was the subject of a chase by Clark County deputies in September 2018. According to an internal sheriff’s office review, deputies terminated the pursuit “due to Rollins’ outrageous driving.”
Boyle then saw Rollins’ truck and confronted him, leading to a fight and a foot chase, according to the records. Rollins returned to the truck and tried to take off. Boyle fired once “to prevent his escape.” The shot did not strike Rollins, who was arrested.
The internal review, which is part of the court record, noted that Boyle was standing to the side of the truck and wasn’t “in danger of being struck or injured.”
“At the time Deputy Boyle fired there were no other people in close proximity to the truck other than the driver, Rollins,” the review states. “Deputy Boyle does not state that he fired to protect his life or lives of others” but instead “to prevent Rollins escape which would subsequently endanger lives if he continued to flee in the stolen truck.”
The review concluded Boyle acted within agency policies in that case.
It also noted that at some point during Boyle’s interaction with Rollins, the deputy “did get inside the vehicle with the suspect and a physical confrontation ensued.”
The two sergeants who reviewed Boyle’s actions said it is “best practice” for deputies not to “get inside, neither wholly or partially in a vehicle with a suspect” because the deputy could be run over if the car moves.
The sergeants also urged training deputies on their responses to suspects in cars, saying “proper training with regards to the inherent dangers of suspect confrontations around moving vehicles can also help reduce the amount of injuries and exposure deputies have from being struck by suspect vehicles.”
It is unclear if the agency took up the recommendations.
Mark Lindquist, a lawyer for Donald’s family, said Boyle reported that he was not disciplined or retrained as a result of the Rollins case.
The court filings included additional revelations, including Boyle’s use of steroids when he shot Donald.
“At the time of the killing Boyle had the strength to deadlift over 300 lbs.,” the court records state.
The records also note that one of the deputies who was at the scene, Holly DeZubiria, had received “performance counseling” after she responded to a report of swastikas spray-painted on a local basketball court and failed to write a report. The lawsuit cites sheriff’s office records as saying DeZubiria didn’t think the image “was a big deal.”
The agency is also being sued by the family of Kevin Peterson Jr. who was killed in October 2020 during an undercover drug sting.
Peterson was shot in the unincorporated community of Hazel Dell as members of a regional drug task force planned to arrest him on an accusation of dealing Xanax, the prescription anxiety medication, according to police accounts.
Three deputies fired a total of 34 rounds, striking Peterson four times, as he fled from his car in the parking lot of a Quality Inn and ran to a nearby parking lot of a closed U.S. Bank in the business district, investigators said.
Peterson had a .40-caliber Glock 23 semi-automatic handgun and ignored commands to drop it, investigators said. Peterson died at the scene.
Peterson’s family is also seeking $17 million; that suit is pending.
In both cases, prosecutors who reviewed the shootings declined to file charges against the deputies.
-- Noelle Crombie; ncrombie@oregonian.com; 503-276-7184; @noellecrombie
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