Police who fatally shot a pregnant woman are sued by her family in Colorado

DENVER — Destinee Thompson was purported to be on her strategy to lunch together with her stepmother in August 2021 when Colorado police, mistaking her for a theft suspect, fatally shot the pregnant mom as she fled in her minivan.

Annoyed by the district legal professional’s resolution final yr to not cost the officers, Thompson’s household filed a wrongful dying and extreme pressure lawsuit on Tuesday in opposition to 5 officers from the Denver suburb of Arvada who have been current when she was killed.

“I need their badges,” mentioned Francis Thompson, Destinee’s father. “She’s 5-foot tall, seven months pregnant. … You’re a grown man and also you’re threatened by that? You don’t deserve to have the ability to put on a badge.”

They allege Destinee Thompson’s race — she’s half Hispanic and half Native American — performed a job in her being focused. Officers have been on the lookout for a suspect described as white or Hispanic.

“If this was a prosperous white particular person entering into her automobile, they might by no means have stopped her,” mentioned Siddhartha Rathod, an legal professional representing her household.

In an announcement Wednesday, the Arvada Police Division mentioned the household’s lawyer has mischaracterized the occasions surrounding Thompson’s dying, and the company plans to mount a vigorous authorized protection.

Police spokesperson Dave Snelling mentioned the officers have been justified in utilizing lethal pressure as a result of they believed Thompson’s actions posed an imminent menace.

The episode happened on Aug. 17, 2021, when officers responded to a report of a lady who had stolen from a Goal and brandished a knife at an worker. A witness adopted the suspect to a close-by motel, the place police arrived. Thompson was leaving that very same motel to fulfill her stepmother, in accordance with the lawsuit, which was first reported by The Denver Put up.

Whereas the outline of the suspect included a white tank prime — which Thompson was sporting — it additionally specified a chest tattoo, which Thompson didn’t have.

Officers famous that she did not precisely match the outline however determined to cease her to rule her out, in accordance with the lawsuit. Thompson stored strolling when police requested her to cease, advised them she wasn’t the particular person they have been on the lookout for, and mentioned she didn’t have an ID to point out them.

The police spokesperson mentioned the officers had “affordable suspicion” to consider Thompson could have been concerned within the theft and have been due to this fact justified in contacting her.

Thompson’s household strongly disagrees.

“She’s performed nothing incorrect … and she or he is confronted by these policemen and doesn’t wish to speak to them,” Rathod mentioned. “You could have the best to not speak to police.”

Thompson, sitting in her minivan and surrounded by 5 officers, locked the doorways and refused to get out, repeating, “It wasn’t me,” the district legal professional wrote within the 2022 letter explaining their resolution to not cost the officers.

One officer smashed the passenger window with a baton, and Thompson backed the automobile up, hitting a police automobile parked behind her. She then drove ahead over the curb and onto the highway.

One officer started taking pictures, in accordance with the district legal professional’s letter, as a result of he believed one other officer was struck by the automobile or being dragged below it, and ultimately shot and killed Thompson. Her unborn little one additionally died.

Thompson’s household alleges the officer who fired may see that the opposite officer hadn’t been hit or dragged by the automobile.

“Not a single one of many different officers thought it was essential to shoot,” added Rathod in an interview. “It is a homicide of a pregnant girl.”

Snelling, the police spokesperson, mentioned the division stands behind its officers’ actions.

“Thompson sadly selected to interact in conduct that the officer fairly believed posed an imminent menace to the lifetime of one other officer,” Snelling wrote. “He selected to make use of lethal pressure to cease that menace.”

Snelling added that the company later found Thompson had warrants out for her arrest and the post-mortem discovered illicit medication in her system.

Rathod and Francis Thompson dismissed the police point out of these warrants, saying it would not justify the officers’ actions and that police on the scene didn’t learn about her background throughout the interplay.

“All they knew was this girl didn’t match the outline of the shoplifting suspect,” Rathod mentioned.

For Francis Thompson, who described his daughter as keen to assist others and fast with fun, it feels just like the police division is utilizing Destinee’s previous to justify her dying.

The grief hasn’t abated, he mentioned. Daily there are moments when he cries, he mentioned. “It’s exhausting for me to discover a function in quite a lot of issues anymore.”

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Bedayn is a corps member for the Related Press/Report for America Statehouse Information Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit nationwide service program that locations journalists in native newsrooms to report on undercovered points.