Just a few weeks after a lawsuit resulted in a judgment against a Casper Police officer for violating a woman’s rights in 2020, the department is back in court facing allegations that two other officers violated a man’s civil rights in 2022.
Officers Jon Ramsay and Craig Burns, defendants in the lawsuit, arrested Brenton Eckerson and charged him with public intoxication, disturbing the peace and interference with a peace officer over Eckerson’s actions in the early hours of March 5, 2022. The officers entered Eckerson’s home, pushed him into a banister and one proceeded to hit him in the face and body after they said he was resisting, according to the federal lawsuit and body camera footage reviewed by WyoFile. At some point, Eckerson’s ACL was also torn, according to court filings.
Eckerson is also suing the City of Casper for allegedly tolerating unconstitutional behavior and insufficiently training police officers.
The Casper Police Department is unable to comment on civil suits, according to spokesperson Amber Freestone. The Casper City Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests for comment by the time this story was published.
What happened?
WyoFile reviewed unabridged bodycam footage provided by Eckerson’s attorney Darold Killmer — the same attorney from another recent case against a Casper Police officer. Before officers arrived, police had received a few calls about Eckerson pushing over a neighbor’s birdbath and flipping off cars.
The bodycam footage showed an intoxicated 39-year-old Eckerson walking into his yard when he was stopped by Officer Ramsay, who called out to Eckerson from his police car. There was snow on the ground with more falling periodically throughout the course of the incident.
Ramsay pulled his gun almost as soon as he exited the vehicle, holding it up toward Eckerson at times, the footage shows. Ramsay asked Eckerson to take his hands out of the pockets of his thin jacket, and initially, Eckerson refused.
“How ‘bout fuck you,” Eckerson said.
He later took his hands out of his pockets while saying, “I’m on my property, you can suck my ass,” as Ramsay pointed his gun directly at Eckerson.
Eckerson was later found to not have any weapons on him.
Eckerson said he had prior experience with arrests getting physical, at one point telling Ramsay that when he talked to police, he always ended up “tackled and arrested.”
“Tackled and arrested?” Ramsay retorted. “Well, maybe it’s because you act like that. Keep your hands out of your pockets for me.”
After a back-and-forth, Eckerson ran around the side of his house and into the back door. Ramsay followed, then circled the building. Eventually, Eckerson taunted him from his front porch, saying, “Ooooh, go ahead, arrest me!”
Ramsay asked Eckerson to come down. When he didn’t, Ramsay climbed the porch steps with backup from Burns, who was not far behind. Eckerson went inside, and the officers kept talking to him, propping the door open and telling him to get down on the ground and “don’t do this dude.”
Eckerson continued responding, telling the officers he was inside his house and “no YOU don’t do this.”
Then the officers entered the house, with Ramsay telling him to get down again just before pushing Eckerson against a banister, breaking a railing. After Eckerson went to the ground, it’s unclear from the video where blows happened or who was hitting him.
Later, footage showed Burns telling a commanding officer he threw “a couple strikes,” busting “up his face a little with one of the strikes.” He added that he wasn’t sure whether Eckerson had weapons at that time.
The tackling and handcuffing took less than a minute.
Soon after, the officers talked with Eckerson’s father in the house. He was upset about his son’s drinking, saying later that his son had been doing really well for a few years.
Eckerson’s blood was all over his face, on the floor and Burn’s hands.
“You guys came into my house and beat the shit out of me,” Eckerson said after he was being walked outside in cuffs.
“It’s all your fault, dude, not ours,” Ramsay responded.
Constitutional rights
The lawsuit against both officers and the city of Casper alleges that these actions violated the First and Fourth amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Criticism of the government and police is protected speech by law, according to the filing, “even if such criticism is arguably impolite and even if it is factually incorrect.” In this case, the suit argues the officers sought to punish Eckerson for what he was saying to them.
When Eckerson asked the officers what they were doing there as he stood in his house and they were on the porch, Ramsay replied, “Because we got a call on you, and then you want to cuss me standing out in the middle of the street.”
The lawsuit also alleges the officers should not have entered the house because they didn’t have a warrant and there were no “exigent circumstances:” a legal justification for immediate action needed to prevent harm or destruction of evidence.
Beyond that, the suit alleges that the officers’ use of force was “disproportionate to the need” and “objectively unreasonable.”
While these are allegations at this point, the lawsuit pointed to another officer from the Casper Police Department who testified to legislators in September about Wyoming police not receiving sufficient training on the Fourth Amendment, which covers search and seizure.
Casper Police Sgt. Jake Bigelow gave the Joint Judiciary Committee a hypothetical scenario involving officers responding to a house to locate a suspect who committed robbery and aggravated assault. The officers don’t have a warrant for the suspect’s arrest or a search warrant, he said.
“The individual answers the door but stays within the threshold of the house,” Bigelow said. “The officers instruct the individual that he’s under arrest. He refuses to come out of the home, and instead, he shuts the door in the officer’s face. The officers reach inside instinctively to prevent the door from shutting and take him into custody. Is that a lawful action?”
No, that hypothetical decision violates the Fourth Amendment and could result in a lawsuit, potentially dropped charges and large settlements, Bigelow cautioned lawmakers.
The lawsuit alleges that the city of Casper provides insufficient training to its officers. It cited several additional cases that resulted in lawsuits and settlements. Beyond that, the suit says the city fails to condemn unconstitutional conduct or discipline officers when that conduct occurs. All three of these issues together “will inevitably result in CPD officers violating the constitutional freedoms of Casper residents in the future,” the suit alleges.
Responses from Casper and the officers are expected to be filed in the coming weeks.
