Attorney: Family of teenager shot by officer to sue District for $100M
By: Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writer
October 11, 2007
WASHINGTON — The family of the 14-year-old who was fatally shot by a D.C. police officer last month plans to file a $100 million lawsuit against the District. It will include a number of explosive allegations of police misconduct, according to the family’s attorney.
The lawsuit will contain a number of new allegations that family attorney Greg Lattimer says he has uncovered while talking to residents in the Southeast Washington neighborhood where DeOnte Rawlings was killed during what police say was a gun battle with an off-duty police officer.
Officers say they fired in self-defense after being shot at by Rawlings, and a bullet hole was found in the door of the police SUV. Police say both veteran officers have clean records.
Lattimer says that he has interviewed at least 30 witnesses and they would come forward when the time was right.
"Everyone is afraid of the police," he said.
Lattimer said the lawsuit, which he expects to file a week from today, will charge that D.C. police officer James Haskel and Rawlings had several previous run-ins, including one when an adult stopped Haskel from trying to handcuff Rawlings so that the officer could question the teenager about drug activity. The confrontation took place about a block from the site of the shooting, at Wahler Place SE, Lattimer said.
Neither Haskel nor his attorney could be reached for comment Wednesday night.
Federal authorities are investigating the shooting. No charges of wrongdoing have been filed against Haskel or a companion officer.
D.C. police spokeswoman Traci Hughes said Wednesday night, "The Rawlings family has every right to exhaust their legal remedies.
Once the suit is filed, it’ll be defended by our attorney general."
Lattimer said that lawsuit will also reveal that another teenager was with Rawlings as they fled from the police officers before Rawlings was shot by a single bullet to the back of the head.
The officers were driving a black SUV with dark-tinted windows and did not identify themselves as law enforcement officers, Lattimer said.
"Nobody knew they were police officers," he said. "They were just people shooting."
One police officer stood over the body while the other ran to a nearby police cruiser and drove off, Lattimer said.
The other officer then got into the SUV and left the scene, Lattimer said.
Police have said that Haskel and another veteran cop, Anthony Clay, were looking for a mini-bike that was stolen from Haskel’s home. The officers confronted Rawlings on the mini-bike and then a gun battle ensued. Haskel fired eight rounds. Three rounds were shot from another gun that police say was used by Rawlings.
Police have not found the gun that the off-duty officer said was used by Rawlings. The mini-bike was found in Prince George’s County several days later.
An autopsy showed that Rawlings was shot in the back of the head.
