Wichita to settle lawsuit in 10-year-old police killing; criminal case remains open

The city of Wichita is preparing to settle a civil lawsuit in a police killing that remains an open criminal case after more than a decade.

Wichita’s city law department is asking the City Council to approve a $175,000 settlement with the mother of Troy K. Lanning, a 24-year-old unarmed man shot and killed by Wichita police officer Randy Williamson in April 2012 after a high-speed chase and foot pursuit.

Civil rights attorney James Thompson, who represented Lanning’s mother, Dawn Herington, in the lawsuit, said he’s disappointed that the city waited so long to settle the case.

“We wish that Dawn and Troy’s daughter could have received more money,” Thompson said. “But under the circumstances, we thought considering it’s been 10 years since he was murdered, we thought it was time to move forward and hopefully secure a little bit of help for Troy’s daughter.”

Lanning’s mother filed lawsuits against the city and former officer Williamson in 2014. The lawsuits claimed Williamson shot Lanning — who was holding a black bag — as he raised his hands to comply with the officer’s commands and then shot him again at least two more times “as he lay on the ground already wounded and helpless.”

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

The Lanning settlement would be the second such payout by the city for 2012 police killings that involved men who were allegedly shot while on the ground. Last year, the city paid the family of Marquez Smart $900,000 to settle a lawsuit in federal court.

Under both settlement agreements, the city and its officers admit no wrongdoing. At least three other civil lawsuits tied to police killings remain unresolved. Those are related to the deaths of Icarus Randolph, Karen Jackson and Andrew Finch.

Unlike in those cases, Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett has declined to clear the officer who fired the fatal shot that killed Lanning. He announced in 2014 that he “cannot and will not clear the officer of responsibility in the shooting death of Troy Lanning.”

Bennett said the status of the case has not changed since then.

“I have not cleared the case or ruled it self defense,” Bennett said. “Since the press release (in 2014), there have been no updates or changes to the status of the case.”

Williamson chased down and killed Lanning after he fled from an SUV following a high-speed chase. Williamson told investigators that Lanning was reaching into a bag when he shot him.

Lanning’s autopsy showed he was shot six times, including twice in the back. There was no gun in his bag or in the SUV he left.

Williamson was later convicted of filing a false report in a separate case in which he fired several shots at a building while on duty and then falsely claimed the shots came in response to a suspicious person appearing ready to shoot him with a rifle or shotgun, The Eagle has previously reported.

A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit against the city and Williamson in 2017 but declined to weigh in on several state claims. When the Lanning family filed a lawsuit in state court, the judge dismissed the case based on Kansas’ res judicata doctrine.

The Lanning lawsuit went all the way to the Kansas Supreme Court and overturned a longstanding legal loophole that barred Kansas state courts from hearing civil claims after a federal court declined to rule on them, whether the state claims had merit or not.

“The city would have been wise to settle it out years ago, and kept that defense,” Thompson said. “But they didn’t, and we won, so that defense is no longer available to them.”

The city law department does not comment on pending litigation. The city council agenda packet for Tuesday asks the council to approve issuing $175,000 in general obligation bonds to fund the settlement, but the city doesn’t plan to use debt financing to pay for the settlement, city spokesperson Megan Lovely said.

It is being paid out of a self-insurance fund that has a balance of $621,591 at this time, Lovely said.

This story was originally published June 6, 2022 at 4:49 AM.