The mother of a teenager who died after being Tased by police officers has quietly settled her wrongful death lawsuit.
Rita Cummings is the mother of Roger Holyfield of Dow, who died at age 17 after a run-in with local police in 2006.
Cummings had a civil suit pending against dispatchers and members of the Jerseyville Police Department, Illinois State Police and the city of Jerseyville after authorities refused to file criminal charges in 2007.
According to Jersey County Circuit Court records, the civil suit was settled earlier this spring.
"They just swept it under the rug," said Rayburn Holyfield, Roger's grandfather. "The two guys that killed him just went on their merry way."
The civil suit alleged that on Oct. 28, 2006, Holyfield was abused by Officers Matt Witt and Todd Wagner of the Jerseyville Police Department, assisted by Officer John Lawson and Trooper Jeff Bridges of the State Police. The defendants allegedly abused Holyfield mentally and physically by shooting him multiple times with a Taser and using forcible restraint when it allegedly was not needed.
The suit claimed that Witt, Wagner, Lawson and Bridges responded that day to the 600 block of South State Street in Jerseyville, where they found Holyfield holding a telephone and a Bible, stating, "I want my mother."
Without sufficient cause, the suit contended, the officers placed Holyfield under arrest, and Holyfield allegedly made no attempts to resist.
The suit alleged that the officers shot Holyfield with Tasers multiple times, even though he was handcuffed and face-down on the ground, and allegedly abused him physically while putting him in a squad car.
After this abuse, the suit claimed, Holyfield began to vomit, and an ambulance was called.
Holyfield died on the way to a St. Louis hospital on Oct. 29, 2006.
Cummings claimed "wrongful death" against the defendants on the grounds that Holyfield suffered severe pain and injury in the incident without just cause or imminent threat of bodily harm toward the officers.
The suit further alleged that the Jerseyville Police Department failed to adequately train or control its dispatchers and officers.
Attorney Mark Niemeyer, who represented Cummings in the suit, could not be reached Friday for comment, nor could attorney Charles Pierce, who represented Jerseyville Police Chief Brad Blackorby.
Robyn Ziegler, a spokeswoman for the Illinois Attorney General's Office, which was the legal representation for the State Police in the civil case, said the two sides settled but that there was no amount of money involved.
"The plaintiff dismissed the suit against the Illinois State Police because they recognized that the State Police had no involvement," Ziegler said.
In November 2007, Wagner and Witt were cleared of criminal responsibility in Holyfield's death.
According to special prosecutor Chuck Colburn of the State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office, the officers were not found to have caused Holyfield's death or to have possessed the mental state or recklessness to be held criminally responsible for it.
A number of witnesses, 40 hours of interviews and more than 1,000 pages of reports were taken into account, Colburn said.
The office's findings included:
- A report by St. Louis Chief Deputy Medical Examiner Phillip Burch, who performed the teen's autopsy, that said Holyfield's death was from natural causes as a result of "excited delirium" and not caused by the use of the Tasers; and
- That officers Wagner and Witt were not found to have had the intention to kill or cause great bodily harm to Holyfield and were following proper police procedure when the incident occurred.
After the report came out, the Appellate Prosecutor's Office and Jerseyville Police Department issued statements of sympathy toward Holyfield's family. The Police Department maintained that officers Wagner and Witt followed procedure in the incident.
Holyfield's family then went on with the civil case against the defendants, pursuing compensatory damages, punitive damages, and court costs and fees.
