news

Family of Iowa domestic homicide victim loses lawsuit against police

Vaseline2 weeks ago

0 4 minutes read

Family of Iowa domestic homicide victim loses lawsuit against police

A small-town police department cannot be held liable for its allegedly lackluster response to a woman’s complaints about repeated threats and harassment by her estranged husband, who ultimately killed her, a federal court has ruled.

Angela Prichard, 55, was shot and killed in October 2022 by her husband Christopher, who was later sentenced to life in prison. In the weeks before her death, Christopher Prichard had made multiple threats against her and her business, destroyed her property, and persistently violated a temporary restraining order she had obtained against him.

After her death, her family sued the city of Bellevue and its police department, claiming that officers’ camaraderie with her husband contributed to their failure to take action on her reports against him.

On October 21, the court dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the officers’ “passivity” did not endanger Prichard, and that an Iowa law requiring officers to arrest restraining order violators does not give victims the right to sue. to file a lawsuit if they don’t. to do that.

Attorney Dave O’Brien, who represents the plaintiffs, said in an email that the family disagrees with the decision and has petitioned Chief Judge CJ Williams to reconsider his ruling. He said they are also asking the Iowa Supreme Court to weigh in on the proper interpretation of the state statute.

Attorneys for the city cited the ongoing litigation and declined to comment on the lawsuit, including whether the city has disciplined officials or updated training or policies since Angela Prichard’s death.

The police allegedly ignored warning signals

According to the lawsuit, it was not difficult to conclude that Christopher Prichard posed a threat to his wife. He was accused of domestic violence against her six months before her death and she found tracking devices and hidden cameras in her car and home.

In the two months before her death, he texted her threatening that “things are going to get really ugly” and that he would “destroy (her) business,” filed false police reports against her and vandalized her home. with paint and dog feces and with weapons visibly spread out.

In September 2022, a court issued a restraining order and specifically ordered that if Christopher Prichard violated the terms by approaching his wife, he was to be “arrested immediately.” That’s in addition to an Iowa statute that requires that, if an officer has reason to believe someone is violating a protective order, “the peace officer shall take the person into custody.”

But the lawsuit says Prichard filed dozens of reports of her husband violating the order, without much result. Police arrested him only once, holding him in jail overnight, and did not arrest him after subsequent reports, even after he failed to appear in court and was sentenced to an additional five days for the offense.

The complaint accused police of favoritism towards Christopher Prichard, noting that he had carried out electrical work for some of them for free or at a reduced rate. It was claimed that police endangered Angela Prichard by warning him that he could act with impunity.

Do officers have a duty to protect?

The court rejected that argument. While public officials can be held liable for a so-called “state-created danger,” the allegations only suggest that Bellevue police failed to adequately respond to a danger created by Prichard’s husband, Judge Williams wrote.

“The Court here does not necessarily condone the officers’ alleged actions, or more accurately, their inaction,” Williams wrote. “However, this does not mean that the defendants’ conduct rises to the level that violates Prichard’s rights.”

And while the officers may have violated Iowa law by failing to arrest Christopher Prichard for each violation, that law does not give victims the right to sue them for failing to do so, the judge ruled.

In their latest filings, the plaintiffs asked the court to refer this question to the Iowa Supreme Court for interpretation. They also ask the court to reconsider in light of evidence they say shows the state intended to take action when officers fail to arrest abusers, claiming the officers involved lied in statements about the accepting services at a lower cost from the couple’s companies. .

Would a stronger enforcement action have saved Angela Prichard?

In a footnote, Williams notes that while police could have more aggressively investigated and prosecuted Christopher Prichard’s reported violations of the protective order, that does not mean this would have guaranteed his wife’s safety.

“Plaintiffs speculate that if the officers had arrested Christopher more often, it would have prevented Angela’s murder,” the judge wrote. “You might as well speculate that it was the officers’ arrest of Christopher for violating the no-contact order that angered him enough to kill Angela. His failure to appear at the hearing and his inability to surrender to jail time likely suggest that he was angry at being held responsible for violating the restraining order.”

Even if he had been arrested immediately after skipping court, the maximum time he would have spent in jail would have been six days, Williams wrote.

“If he wanted to kill Angela, all he had to do was wait those six days,” he wrote. “This illustrates the terrible situation victims of domestic violence face, as no contact order, even if imposed, hardly carries the weight of punishment that would serve as an equal deterrent to someone bent on violence.”

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at [email protected] or 715-573-8166.

Vaseline2 weeks ago

0 4 minutes read