Citing wrongful death, assault, false imprisonment and emotional
distress, the family of Jack Yantis is taking legal action against the
Adams County Sheriff’s Office and its
two deputies who shot and killed Yantis nearly eight months ago. Yantis’ wife, Donna, his daughters, Sarah and Lauretta, and his nephew, Rowdy Paradis, have filed a tort claim against Adams County, Deputies Cody Roland and Brian Wood and Sheriff Ryan Zollman. A tort claim is a precursor required by Idaho law to filing a lawsuit against a county or government agency. Here is what the claim says happened during the Nov. 1. shooting of 62-year-old Yantis, which took place on U.S. 95 in front of his ranch:
A bull strayed from the ranch and was hit by a car. An Adams County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher called the Yantis house and asked Jack Yantis to take care of the bull. Jack, his wife, their nephew and a family friend, Joe Rumsey, were at the house when dispatch called. All four went down to the highway to assist. Yantis stood on the highway behind the bull with his rifle aimed at the back of the animal’s head.
“(W)ithout any warning, provocation or justifiable excuse — Deputy [Cody] Roland suddenly stepped up behind Jack, grabbed him and jerked him around and backwards,” the claim states.
“[Deputy Roland and Deputy Brian Wood] immediately unleashed a hail of bullets. They shot to kill. It is unknown how many times they fired. ... (N)o reasonable deputy would have feared for his safety. It was obvious Jack was not committing a crime and posed no threat to anyone. The deputies did not ask Jack to put the rifle down. They did not give him any other requests, commands or warnings. They did not fire any warning shots. They did not fire any non-lethal shots. They did not even give Jack enough time to regain his footing after Deputy Roland assaulted him.”...
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HT: Marvin Frisbey
1 comment:
This may be a case of over-the-top training. Law enforcement academies sometimes train their officers to react rather than think. This may be a result of a combination of compartmentalization, risk aversion, and basic lack of consideration or trust of a law enforcement officers' need to be able to assess a situation. It is not so much they are not trained to think, but rather they are trained not to think. "See a gun, assume the worst, start shooting."
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