Wichita police officer’s shootings continue to be litigated

At a time when police shootings have become a key issue locally and nationally, two Wichita shootings by the same officer are the subject of ongoing court cases.

The former officer, Randy Williamson, is a defendant in a lawsuit accusing him of wrongfully shooting and killing a man while on duty in April 2012.

Williamson also is a defendant in a criminal case, set for trial next month. In that case, prosecutors accuse him of firing shots that damaged a south Wichita building while he was on duty in September 2012. They also allege that he falsely reported a crime, apparently about the incident.

His attorney in the criminal case said Wednesday that when Williamson allegedly shot at the building, he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, as a result of the fatal shooting five months earlier.

Williamson had been a Wichita police officer for 10 years. His employment ended in July 2013; the city won’t say why it no longer employs him.

Williamson said he couldn’t comment when reached by phone Wednesday.

Death of Troy Lanning II

In the lawsuit, Williamson and the city are defendants in a civil case filed by Dawn Herington, the mother of 24-year-old Troy Lanning II.

While on duty in April 2012, Williamson chased Lanning and shot him several times, killing Lanning after Lanning allegedly reached into a bag.

The lawsuit, filed in March, claims that the city knew or should have known that Williamson had “mental problems and violent tendencies.” The lawsuit also contends that Williamson wrongfully and unnecessarily shot and killed Lanning when he was unarmed and wasn’t posing an imminent threat.

James A. Thompson, the attorney bringing the lawsuit against the city and Williamson, also represents another family suing over another Wichita police shooting, the death of 45-year-old Karen Jackson in July 2012.

The Lanning lawsuit, which is seeking more than $75,000, says that Williamson shot Lanning several times “as he lay on the ground already wounded and helpless.”

The lawsuit says an autopsy found that Lanning was shot six times: twice in the left side of his back in the shoulder blade, once in his right shoulder blade, once in his right cheek, once in his upper right thigh and once in the top of his right shoulder.

The lawsuit notes that no weapons were found on or near Lanning.

The city’s lawyers argued that “Williamson was justified in using deadly force,” that he “reasonably perceived” a threat posed by Lanning.

A separate lawyer for Williamson, Arthur Chalmers, provided this detailed narrative: The shooting began with a late-night, high-speed chase –following a report of a possible drive-by shooting – through a residential area of southwest Wichita. A Toyota SUV – a dispatcher said the license tag was stolen – jumped a curb and stopped suddenly in some grass. Williamson saw a man carrying a bag in his hands run from the SUV. Williamson followed the man, who was later determined to be Lanning.

According to Chalmers’ narrative, Williamson repeatedly yelled commands for Lanning to stop for police and to get on the ground. Williamson drew his service revolver from the holster because he “had a reasonable and substantial concern about the risk of serious injury that Mr. Lanning posed to him and others.”

After Williamson yelled for Lanning to drop the bag and show his hands, Lanning ignored the officer, turned “and raised the bag as if to shoot a gun inside the bag.” When Lanning “continued the aggressive movement,” it forced Williamson to “fire a volley” of five to six rounds, Chalmers wrote in the court document.

After Lanning fell over the bag, he rolled and lifted the bag with his right hand inside “as if to fire a gun,” it says. After Lanning continued to ignore commands, it forced Williamson to fire a second volley of two to three rounds, Chalmers said.

Williamson is scheduled to give a deposition in the lawsuit on Friday, according to a court record.

The District Attorney’s Office has yet to issue a finding on whether Williamson was justified in shooting Lanning.

The attorney for the Lanning family said in the lawsuit that Williamson has been involved in three shootings and was “removed from street duty because he is believed to have lied” about the third shooting.

Two other shootings

The first shooting occurred in 2008. Someone reportedly fired on Williamson while he was working outside the Wichita Area Technical College, 324 N. Emporia.

Police said he escaped injury when a bullet apparently deflected off his lapel microphone while he was making rounds outside the college. Dozens of officers searched buildings downtown, looking for a shooter. It was not clear where the bullet came from.

The third shooting occurred in September 2012, about five months after Lanning was shot.

In the September 2012 shooting, Williamson faces a Nov. 3 trial in Sedgwick County District Court on a felony charge of criminal damage to property and a misdemeanor charge of falsely reporting a crime. The charges stem from a shooting in which Williamson allegedly fired shots that hit a building.

According to the charges, Williamson caused damage to metal siding, a metal door and a window. Prosecutors also accuse him of intentionally telling law enforcement that a crime – aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer – had been committed.

Soon after the incident, police said that Williamson fired several times after he said someone acting suspiciously appeared ready to shoot at him with a rifle or shotgun. Williamson, then a nine-year veteran, was parked in the 2800 block of West Pawnee doing paperwork just before midnight. Investigators found no evidence that anyone fired at him.

About three weeks after the shooting of the building, The Eagle, citing a law enforcement source, reported that the incident raised “grave concerns” that led to the officer immediately being taken off street duty.

On Tuesday, his defense attorney in the criminal case, Patrick Mitchell, filed a brief document in Sedgwick County District Court saying that Williamson was giving “notice of intent to rely on defense of mental disease or defect,” saying that the defense team might present evidence that Williamson “was operating under a mental disease or defect which affected his reasoning at the time of the commission of the instant crime.”

In an interview Wednesday, Mitchell said: “Mr. Williamson suffers from PTSD as a result from the (Lanning) shooting and continues to suffer the effects of it.”

Mitchell said PTSD was a “contributing factor” in the incident for which Williamson is charged and that he is undergoing counseling for PTSD. “He was suffering the effects of PTSD at that time” the building was hit.

In the answer filed in the lawsuit over Lanning’s death, Williamson’s other attorney, Chalmers, says the 2008 shooting and the shooting at the building are irrelevant to the lawsuit and that any mention of them should be stricken from the lawsuit complaint.

This story was originally published October 8, 2014 at 8:38 PM with the headline "Wichita police officer’s shootings continue to be litigated."