Lander man alleges excessive force by officers who pepper-sprayed him in lawsuit against police, city

A Lander man who accused local police of excessive force during an arrest last fall has sued the city, the department and several officers, alleging police violated his civil rights when they roughly handcuffed and pepper-sprayed him. 

Two Lander Police Department officers arrested Kayvon Powell in September 2024 after stopping him in his car for alleged reckless driving — a charge Powell denied and was never convicted of. The encounter quickly devolved into a shouting match after Powell said he was unable to roll his broken window down and Sgt. Ron Wells instead opened Powell’s car door without permission. 

After an increasingly contentious encounter in which Powell said he feared for his safety, Wells and another officer arrested Powell.

His lawsuit, filed Tuesday, focuses largely on the officers’ use of pepper spray during that arrest, which his attorneys allege violated Powell’s civil rights against unnecessary and unreasonable force. 

WyoFile examined Powell’s allegations of abuse by the officers, and his subsequent trial on charges of interfering with a police officer, for an investigation published in June. During Powell’s trial in April, a Fremont County judge described Wells as “out of line, absolutely 100% out of line,” during the arrest. It was a rare admonishment from a Wyoming judge to a law enforcement officer. 

Lander’s interim police chief, Kelly Waugh, and a city official declined to comment on the lawsuit. “Public comment at this time could compromise the City’s legal position and privileged communications,” they wrote in a prepared statement.

Waugh told WyoFile, in an interview this summer, that Wells had “taken full ownership that he did not handle himself appropriately that day.” But Waugh declined to say whether Wells faced any disciplinary proceedings, saying instead that as chief, he was impressed by the sergeant’s willingness to take responsibility for his actions.

In the lawsuit, Powell’s attorneys claim that the officers’ use of pepper spray did not violate the Lander Police Department’s policy at the time. The suit describes the policy as “completely inadequate, improper and unconstitutional.” 

Wells and another officer, Casey Tadewald, ultimately arrested Powell on suspicion of interfering with a police officer, after he declined to show Wells any identification. A Fremont County jury later convicted Powell of the interference charge — a misdemeanor. Prosecutors dropped a reckless driving charge before the trial. Powell has denied that allegation.

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Powell is appealing his interference conviction. He is being represented by a public defender in that case and the two matters will proceed independently of each other. 

During the arrest, body camera footage shows the officers treating Powell roughly, though he says he did not resist, as they remove him from his car, handcuff him and take him to a police cruiser. In the lawsuit, Powell’s attorneys say he complied with the officers throughout the arrest, and got in the police car as ordered. 

Once Powell was in the cruiser, Tadewald blasted the back seat of the car, and the handcuffed man, with pepper spray, according to the lawsuit. In Wells’ subsequent police report, he wrote Tadewald used the pepper spray because Powell blocked the car door’s closing with his feet. Powell denied that to WyoFile, and described the pepper spray as a vindictive move by the officers.

His lawsuit echoes that allegation, accusing Wells and Tadewald of using “gratuitous and excessive force” during the arrest. The complaint claims the officers closed the car door successfully. But then Wells opened the door and Tadewald sprayed Powell, the complaint alleges. The suit also alleges that Wells at first kept the rear windows closed as he drove Powell to the Lander jail. 

As Powell pleaded for fresh air and some relief from the pepper spray in his eyes, Wells told him “that’s what you get,” according to the complaint. 

The officers’ “violence, wanton use of pain tactics, and unreasonable use of pepper spray by Defendant Tadewald against Mr. Powell was without legal justification or provocation,” the complaint reads. 

Powell is represented by Spence Law Firm, a well-known law firm out of Jackson. (Storied litigator and firm founder Gerry Spence passed away last month.) Powell is also represented by Lander attorney Bailey Lazzari. 

Powell, a Black man who moved to Lander from Charlottesville, Virginia, sometime after 2017, is bringing a rare lawsuit for Wyoming. Last year, only two claims were filed against Equality State law enforcement officers on constitutional grounds, according to a report from the state insurance pool responsible for covering them. In 2023, there were eight such claims, and the highest number of constitutional claims made against officers in recent years came in 2020, with 13.  

Nationally, fewer than 1% of people who think police officers violated their rights ever file a lawsuit, according to academic researchers. People who do sue the police face a high bar for legal victory, as federal court precedent gives officers wide latitude for actions undertaken on duty. Even cases that survive motions to dismiss are successful only around 15% of the time, according to the Harvard Law Review.

Powell’s lawsuit does not allege discrimination or racism. He previously told WyoFile he believes his appearance has impacted the way local law enforcement treated him in Lander, a claim the police chief denied. 

Following his court case, Powell approached the chief, Kelly Waugh, at a Lander gas station and surreptitiously recorded him. 

The chief conceded to Powell that “what he [Wells] did was very unprofessional,” according to a copy of the recording which Powell previously provided WyoFile. Powell then told the chief he intended to sue the department, prompting Waugh to end the conversation. At that point, Waugh later told WyoFile, the matter needed to be handled by attorneys. 

Despite the chief’s admission that Wells had expressed concern about his own actions during the arrest, the county did not drop its prosecution of Powell, who received probation with a suspended 45-day jail sentence. Lander officials never made any moves to make amends to Powell, attorney Noah Drew of the Spence Law Firm told WyoFile.

“What happened to Kayvon is indefensible,” Drew said. “While the Lander Chief of Police acknowledged it was wrong — the city of Lander has neither apologized nor taken steps to make it right. That silence underscores why cases like this must be brought.”