A jury trial is scheduled to begin April 6 in a Little Rock federal courtroom over an off-duty Little Rock police officer's shooting of two men in Park Plaza mall's lower parking deck in 2011.

The case, delayed by the city's unsuccessful appeal of a 2018 pretrial ruling, was set for trial Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Billy Roy Wilson.

On Sept. 26, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Wilson's refusal to grant qualified immunity to the officer, Christopher Johannes. The officer was working as a security guard at the mall on the afternoon of Dec. 27, 2011, when he fired 12 shots into a car that was backing out of a parking space. A woman had complained to a mall security post that some men had tried to coax her 17-year-old daughter to get in the car with them, and Johannes and a mall guard arrived to see the car in question backing out.

Johannes later said he fired because the car was backing out quickly despite him telling the driver to stop, and that he feared for his and the security guard's safety, according to reports.

The driver, Joseph Williams, was shot four times in the back, and the front-seat passenger, Keith Pettus, was grazed by a bullet on the left side of his face. Both have lingering injuries, according to reports.

A third man who was in the back seat, Johnnie Campbell, wasn't hit. But all three men sued the city and Johannes in 2017, claiming that he violated their Fourth Amendment rights by using excessive force against them. They also sued the mall for hiring Johannes in an off-duty capacity.

A three-judge appellate panel -- Duane Benton of Kansas City, Mo., Jane Kelly of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Ralph Erickson of Fargo, N.D. -- agreed with Wilson that Johannes cannot escape liability by claiming he is immune for doing his job. They said that at the time of the shooting, "it was clearly established that [the three men] could not be apprehended by deadly force unless they posed a threat of serious physical harm."

In 2018, Wilson dismissed the city and a former police chief from the lawsuit, but said a jury needed to resolve factual disputes against Johannes and the mall.

To determine whether the officer's actions were objectively reasonable, Wilson said, a jury must consider the unique facts and circumstances, "including the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting or attempting to evade arrest by flight."

Wilson said a reasonable officer would have known that the men in the car had a clearly established right to be free from the use of deadly force if they didn't pose a threat of serious physical harm to anyone, so qualified immunity didn't apply. He said the issue of whether the men posed a serious threat is a jury's call.

Metro on 01/09/2020