Lawsuit: Cowley deputy who fatally shot motorist was involved in conspiracy

A lawsuit over a Cowley County deputy’s fatal shooting of a 22-year-old Arkansas City man alleges a conspiracy involving the officer and two mothers of the man’s children.

The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court, seeks $5 million in damages plus costs in the May 2014 death of Tayler Rock.

It names as defendants Cowley County and its county commissioners, Deputy Steven Deill, county corrections Officer Ana Bedolla and Shea Casurole.

Bedolla and Casurole are identified as mothers of Rock’s two children. Rock had been in a custody or visitation battle with Bedolla and Casurole, the lawsuit complaint says.

The shooting occurred during a traffic stop by Deill, who had a relationship with Bedolla, it says.

“In the weeks prior to the shooting, Tayler (Rock) told others that Defendant Bedolla stated she could have him shot and killed by Cowley County Deputies,” the lawsuit says.

A week after the shooting, the county fired Bedolla from her county corrections job, it says.

Deill no longer works as a Cowley County deputy and apparently didn’t return to duty after the shooting, said James A. Thompson, one of the Wichita attorneys bringing the lawsuit for Rock’s mother and his children.

Cowley County Sheriff Don Read on Wednesday said he could confirm that Deill and Bedolla no longer work for the county. Read said he couldn’t say more because of the pending litigation.

Deill’s attorney, Jennifer Hill, said she couldn’t comment. Neither Casurole nor Bedolla could be reached.

The deputy’s traffic stop “was not related to public safety but was a means of harassing Tayler as a means of furthering his (the deputy’s) relationship” with Bedolla, the lawsuit says.

The county didn’t properly supervise Deill and “ignored his workplace relationship with Ana Bedolla” and the conspiracy between the deputy and the two women, the lawsuit contends.

Prosecutor cleared deputy

The litigation comes more than a year after Cowley County Attorney Chris Smith determined that the shooting was legally justified.

The deputy shot Rock five times as Rock grappled with the officer and tried to drive off with the deputy leaning inside his car on Highway 166, Smith said. The county attorney said Rock grabbed the officer’s wrist, refused to let go, accelerated the car and dragged the deputy alongside, endangering the officer.

The lawsuit gives a different account, saying Deill saw Rock with his arms and torso extended outside the car window, indicating that Rock was cooperative. Witnesses said Deill was bending over into the car and that they didn’t see the two men struggling.

“At no point was Tayler’s vehicle being used as an instrument of deadly force,” the lawsuit claims.

The deputy’s account “is inconsistent with the physical facts of the shooting, the autopsy report, and the reports of witnesses at the scene,” says the lawsuit complaint.

The gunfire “narrowly missed” one of Rock’s young children, who was in a car seat in the back, it says.

During the traffic stop, the car ended up going down an embankment and through a barbed wire fence into a field.

The lawsuit gives this background: Rock, a “gifted pianist and singer” who was going to perform in Houston the month after his death, was in a custody battle with Bedolla, the county corrections officer. She and Deill, the county sheriff’s deputy, “had some type of relationship.”

As part of her custody battle, Bedolla “used her position and connections” with the Cowley County Department of Corrections to harass Rock through traffic stops and a raid on his home, the lawsuit says.

Alleged conspiracy

The alleged conspiracy played out this way: On Bedolla’s behalf, a little over three months before the shooting, Deill contacted the Arkansas City Police Department in an unsuccessful effort to have Rock arrested. The lawsuit does not say what she tried to have him arrested for. Bedolla e-mailed Sheriff Read and Deputy Jeff Moore on Feb. 15, 2014, complaining about the police refusal to act and seeking the sheriff’s help.

In March 2014, Arkansas City police received an anonymous tip that Tayler Rock was dealing drugs, according to the lawsuit. Police and the sheriff’s drug task force raided Rock’s home and let Bedolla take her child from the home “because of a marijuana stem found at his residence.”

“The harassment included a conspiracy between” Deill, Bedolla and Casurole that ended the day Rock died, the lawsuit says.

Rock and Casurole also had a child together and were in a visitation dispute in which Casurole was keeping her child from Rock, it says.

“Out of nowhere,” the lawsuit claims, Casurole called Rock on May 31, 2014, and told him he could drive to Coffeyville and pick up his daughter for a visit. He hadn’t seen the girl in months and “was ecstatic.” He took his other daughter with him to Coffeyville.

“Tayler spent his last day alive with the girls playing, laughing, and being a family,” the lawsuit says.

After Rock dropped off the one girl with Casurole and was returning to Arkansas City on Highway 166, Casurole called Bedolla and told her that Rock was on his way, it says. Bedolla reached Deill and told him that Rock was returning on the highway. Bedolla said she called in a “child in need of care” check, the lawsuit says. An e-mail went to other deputies to be on the lookout for Rock because he allegedly had a suspended driver’s license.

“Despite knowing where Tayler lived, Defendant Deill selected a secluded area of Highway 166 to wait for Tayler as he returned from Coffeyville so that he could pull him over, arrest Tayler and presumably return” his other daughter to Bedolla, it says. When Rock passed the deputy’s patrol car, Deill stopped Rock’s car and told him he was under arrest.

“During this entire sequence of events,” the lawsuit says, “the video recorder in Defendant Deill’s car was mysteriously not functioning.” The county sold the patrol car, making it impossible to check the car and camera.

An autopsy showed that Rock was shot five times: in the neck, upper and lower chest, abdomen and arm.

The deputy had plenty of opportunity to arrest Rock without using deadly force, “especially since an infant child was in the back seat,” the lawsuit claims. It also states that Rock had no weapon and “indicated he posed no threat” to Deill, and the deputy “easily could have located him at a later time to pursue the misdemeanor charge of driving with a suspended license.”

This story was originally published December 3, 2015 at 6:43 AM with the headline "Lawsuit: Cowley deputy who fatally shot motorist was involved in conspiracy."