Widow of Linden man shot while working on daughter's SUV sues ISP trooper for wrongful death Gloria Rightsell’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court’s Southern Indiana District, claims Trooper Daniel Organ used unreasonable and unjustified deadly force when he fired his weapon on Glenn Rightsell, 56, a Linden masonry business owner.

Dave Bangert | Lafayette Journal & Courier

Show Caption Hide Caption RAW video: Glenn Rightsell handcuffed after being shot by ISP trooper Authorities responding to the scene on U.S. 231 after trooper Daniel Organ shot Glenn Rightsell.

INDIANAPOLIS – The widow of Glenn Rightsell, a Linden man who died after being shot in the face by an Indiana State Police trooper while working under the hood of his daughter’s stalled vehicle along U.S. 231, filed a federal lawsuit Monday nearly a year after her husband’s death.

Gloria Rightsell’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court’s Southern Indiana District, claims Trooper Daniel Organ used unreasonable and unjustified deadly force when he fired his weapon on Glenn Rightsell, 56, a Linden masonry business owner.

The suit also claims Organ, along with three local officers from Montgomery County and Crawfordsville on the scene, delayed medical care that might have saved his life the night of Dec. 28, 2018.

Before the lawsuit, the prosecutor decided against charging the trooper

The filing, signaled last spring by Gloria Rightsell’s attorney, comes nine months after the Montgomery County prosecutor said charges weren’t warranted in the shooting, concluding a nine-week investigation by writing that “sufficient evident exists that Mr. Organ was subjectively in fear of death of serious bodily injury and that he honestly believed a gun was being drawn to shoot him.”

Bruce Kehoe, Gloria Rightsell’s attorney, said Monday that the incident should never have happened and never needed to escalate to deadly force.

NO CHARGES: No charges after ISP trooper shot, killed Linden man working on car along US 231

“When you have a private citizen who does nothing wrong and is deprived of the right to go home and have dinner with his family and live life, I think you have an obligation to call it out and say that’s unacceptable,” Kehoe said. “What happened? That’s just unacceptable.”

The suit names Organ, along with the Indiana State Police. It also names the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office, the city of Crawfordsville, Montgomery County deputies Mike Taylor and Austin Thomen and Crawfordsville police officer Rick Ferrin.

1st Sgt. Ron Galaviz, Indiana State Police spokesman, said Monday that ISP hadn’t received the lawsuit, yet. He said ISP did not comment on pending litigation, anyway.

Sgt. Kim Riley, an ISP spokesman from the Lafayette post, said that since the incident, Organ had transferred to the Indiana State Police post in Putnamville, south of ISP’s Lafayette district.

Crawfordsville Assistant Chief Jim Sessions said the police department wouldn’t comment on the lawsuit. Montgomery County Sheriff Ryan Needham was not immediately available for comment.

Before the shooting, Glenn Rightshell told police where he would be working on the car

In March, Montgomery County Prosecutor Joseph Buser issued a 17-page report that set a chronology of what happened Dec. 28, based on interviews with Organ, the other officers who arrived after Rightsell was shot, several drivers who passed the scene just south of North Montgomery High School and a neighbor who recorded video from his porch across U.S. 231 from the scene after he heard what wound up being gunshots.

The report said that Rightsell had notified Montgomery County police that he would be going to the shoulder of U.S. 231 to work on the 2007 Chevy Tahoe. According to Buser’s report, that information was passed along to Indiana State Police, but ISP dispatchers did not broadcast that to troopers on the road.

The report said that Organ had put a sticker on the stranded SUV earlier that afternoon on a stretch of U.S. 231, north of Crawfordsville and about 17 miles south of Lafayette. Buser wrote that Organ didn’t know about Rightsell’s call before the trooper approached the vehicle again around 6:35 p.m. that night.

Organ reported that, as he approached from the rear of the Chevy Tahoe, he could see through a gap under the open hood that Rightsell had a gun holstered to his hip. The lawsuit and the prosecutor’s report agreed that Rightsell had a legal permit to carry the .380 Walther semi-automatic pistol. Kehoe and Gloria Rightsell said Monday that Glenn Rightsell routinely carried a handgun.

Organ also reported that he saw a white Dodge Challenger, with Colorado plates, that Rightsell was driving and had parked with its trunk open just in front of the Chevy Tahoe.

ISP FATAL SHOOTING: Prosecutor's full report into Glenn Rightsell’s death along U.S. 231

Organ didn't have a dashboard camera in his car or a body camera. According to the report, he told investigators that he told Rightsell: “Hello. Trooper Organ, Indiana State Police. Don’t reach for your gun. Do you need help?” According to the prosecutor’s report, Organ told investigators that “Mr. Rightsell looked at (him) and pushed his body away from the Tahoe, rolling upon his left hip. Mr. Rightsell also brought his right hand back. To Mr. Organ, this motion was consistent with drawing a handgun.”

NO DASH CAMS: 'Justice for Glenn Rightsell' rallies push, but ISP has no plans to add dash cams

According to the prosecutor’s report, Organ told a Montgomery County deputy who arrived on the scene, “I told him not to reach for it, and he grabbed it.”

Buser’s report said six shots were fired. Several of the bullets were lodged in the body or hood of the SUV. Family members of Rightsell shared with the J&C photos of bullet holes in the fender and hood of the Chevy Tahoe. The lawsuit claims one of the bullets hit Glenn Rightsell in the lower lip.

The lawsuit claims Organ retreated to his patrol car at that point to reload his handgun, retrieve a rifle from the trunk and to wait for other police officers to arrive.

The lawsuit claims that when other officers arrived, they found Rightsell “with his back to the ground and his hands in the air in front of the Tahoe.”

According to the prosecutor’s report, the officers ordered Rightsell to crawl on his knees their direction, with hands in the air. That scene was caught by the neighbor recording the scene from his porch. Kehoe said he would introduce footage of that scene from the perspective of Ferrin, the Crawfordsville police officer who was wearing a body camera.

BODY CAM FOOTAGE, MINUTES AFTER ISP TROOPER SHOT GLENN RIGHTSELL:

Raw Video: Body cam footage, minutes after ISP trooper shoots Glenn Rightsell A Crawfordsville police officer's body cam shows response minutes after an Indiana State Police trooper fatally shot Glenn Rightsell on U.S. 231 on Dec. 28, 2018.

According to the prosecutor’s report, when police handcuffed Rightsell, his gun was still holstered.

According to the prosecutor’s report, when police handcuffed Rightsell, his gun was still holstered.

The prosecutor’s report said medical personnel started treating Rightsell at 6:56 p.m. According to the lawsuit, Rightsell was on the ground for “10 to 15 minutes before being forced to crawl on his knees with hands in the air” to officers. The lawsuit claims that Rightsell “was forced to sit handcuffed on a guardrail” and was not allowed to get medical attention from EMS personnel on the scene “until approximately 20 to 30 minutes after the shooting.”

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The prosecutor’s report said law enforcement officers weren’t able to interview Rightsell that night to get his account of what happened.

Kehoe said questions about medical care at the emergency room in Crawfordsville will be raised in a separate lawsuit, which he said would be filed in a state court in the coming weeks.

In a March 22 filing with the Indiana Department of Insurance’s medical malpractice division, Gloria Rightsell claimed that Dr. Ryan Weakley, an emergency room physician at Franciscan Health Crawfordsville, left Glenn Rightsell’s injuries untreated until it was nearly too late. The filing claimed that even then, Weakley botched attempts to clear blood from Rightsell’s airway in the minutes before he died, two hours after he was shot.

The malpractice filing made May 22 claims the Weakley failed to note the exit wound of a bullet that struck Rightsell in the mouth. The document claims Rightsell was given a suctioning device and instructed to self-suction the blood in his mouth. When Rightsell began to choke, the claim says, Weakley tried to intubate Rightsell. That failed. So did a tracheotomy procedure.

Attempts to reach Weakley were not immediately successful.

Rightsell died at 8:48 p.m. at Franciscan Health Crawfordsville. The coroner listed the cause of death as homicide.

'Every day, I wake up and it’s a nightmare,' widow says

Gloria Rightsell said she wasn’t surprised when the prosecutor announced he wouldn’t pursue charges. But she said that fact still haunts her.

“Every day, I wake up and it’s a nightmare,” Rightsell said. “Every day. I mean, I play this over and over in my head, again.”

The prosecutor’s report interviewed a nurse at the emergency room, who told investigators that Glenn Rightsell seemed most concerned about contacting his wife so she knew he was at the hospital. By the time Gloria Rightsell made it to Franciscan Health Crawfordsville – after first heading to Indianapolis, where she believed Glenn Rightsell was heading – her husband had died.

“And he asked for his wife,” Gloria Rightsell said. “Do you know what that does to me?”

Gloria Rightsell said that when she arrived, she was interviewed by police while she was still trying to figure out what had happened.

“They said, ‘Was he in any kind of mood when he left?’” she said. “I was like, ‘No, he went to get a heater hose for my daughter’s Tahoe.’ I was shocked. … We’re just asking for justice for Glenn.”

Asked if that meant a financial settlement or an admission of wrongdoing, Gloria Rightsell said: “All of the above, I would think.”

The lawsuit does not list a specific financial demand.

“Behavior like this absolutely cannot go unchecked,” Kehoe said. “There has to be a moment of accountability.”

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.

READ THE PROSECUTOR'S REPORT ON THE INVESTIGATION OF THE FATAL SHOOTING OF GLENN RIGHTSELL: