Richard Billingslea

In less than a year, Detroit Police Officer Richard Billingslea and his partner, Officer Hakeem Patterson, have been named in four lawsuits, the latest involving a police chase that ended with the suspect vehicle crashing into and killing two children.

Plaintiffs in the other lawsuits claim they were illegally arrested or were the victims of excessive force.

One May 2017 incident resulted in Billingslea being charged with felony assault and obstruction of justice.

Claims in the latest lawsuit challenge key portions of Detroit police accounts regarding the chase and fatal crash that killed Michael A. Jackson, 6; and Makiah Jackson, 3, on June 24, 2015.

Three others survived injuries suffered in the same crash, including 23-year-old Lakendra Gardner and two other children, 8 and 3, who were not named in the lawsuit because they are minors.

Southfield-based attorney Solomon Radner, on behalf of Gardner and representatives of the children, filed the lawsuit in federal court on Feb. 2, naming Billingslea, Patterson, a third partner in their Special Operations scout car, Officer Steven Fultz, as well as supervisors and the department.

The lawsuit claims Billingslea, the driver, caused the fatal crash when he attempted what police call a precision immobilization technique, or PIT maneuver. Detroit police have never acknowledged striking the suspect's vehicle and say they called off the chase as soon as the suspect lost control.

Fultz, who rode in the front passenger seat, testified in court that the chase began when he saw the driver of a Red Camaro, Lorenzo D. Harris, 32, holding a semiautomatic handgun in the air as the car passed in front of the Detroit police unit.

Police attempted to stop the Camaro, which sped off and prompted the chase through a densely populated neighborhood on a summer night.

Subsequent analysis of the Camaro's data recorder revealed it was traveling at speeds near 100 mph. Fultz, however, claimed their 2004 Ford Crown Victoria, which didn't have an operational dashboard video camera, never exceeded 50 mph.

Billingslea, according to police reports obtained by George Hunter of the Detroit News, said he slowed down and ended the chase prior to the crash, which witnesses disputed in testimony given during the trial of Harris.

Fultz testified that he and his partners, who were a "a good block to maybe a block and a half" behind, saw the suspect's vehicle lose control while crossing East Warren Avenue northbound on Nottingham Road and called off the chase.

"He's out of control. We need to slow it down. We need to stop," Fultz said he told Billingslea while on the witness stand in July 2015. "And as we approached Warren, I was getting ready to turn off the lights and siren to stop the chase. At that point, I observed a large ... cloud of dirt."

Billingslea wrote in his report that Fultz attempted to contact dispatch to advise they had ended the chase, but there is no dispatch record to confirm that ever occurred.

911 Audio

Harris lost control of the Camaro about a block north of East Warren Avenue and careened off the roadway, striking the two children and then a van parked in a neighbor's driveway. The van was pushed into the three other victims.

A neighbor and witness, Joel Fowler, estimated the Detroit police vehicle, which at the time had its emergency lights on but no siren, was trailing about five to six houses behind the Camarao.

During the preliminary examination in Harris' criminal case, there were no witnesses who claimed to see the Detroit police car strike the Camaro.

The civil lawsuit claims: "Additional eye-witness testimony suggests the defendant officers were so close to the red Camaro, which was traveling over 100 mph through the Nottingham neighborhood, that defendant officers' police cruiser bumped the rear of the red Camaro and caused it to spin out of control."

The lawsuit claims the officers violated department policy, which states: "A pursuit shall be discontinued when, in the judgment of the primary unit, there is a clear and present danger to the public which outweighs the need for immediate apprehension of the violator."

The pursuit policy was revised and made even more stringent by Detroit Police Chief James Craig in a directive issued in June 2017.

The policy says vehicle pursuits may now only be conducted by fully uniformed officers in fully marked police vehicles with operating audio and video equipment when they have probable cause to believe a suspect has committed a violent crime.

After the crash, Harris ran away on foot, but was arrested about four blocks away.

The gun Harris was alleged to have been carrying was never recovered. Detroit's police chief, following the fatal crash, told media a witness at the scene reported seeing a weapon; however, no witness testified to seeing a gun during Harris' preliminary examintation.

Harris was convicted of eight felonies, including two counts of involuntary manslaughter. His earliest release date is April 5, 2046, according to Michigan Department of Corrections records.

Detroit police previously told MLive that Billingslea was suspended for three days following the 2015 crash, because an internal investigation found he was in violation of the department's pursuit policy.

The following are other pending lawsuits that name Billingslea and Patterson. The summaries are claims based on the complaints and are not established fact. The full complaints are embedded below:

Terry Parnell says his fiance was firing a gun into the air outside the home they shared on Jan. 14, 2017, while he was inside the home on Greensboro in Detroit. Billingslea, Patterson and a third officer, Clinton Mack, responded to the gunfire. The lawsuit claims the officers used unnecessarry and excessive force to arrest Parnell, who spent six days in jail before the case against him was dismissed for insufficient evidence.

D'Marco Craft and friend Michaele Jackson say Billingslea fired chemical spray at Jackson and violently tackled Craft, who claims he'd been previously harassed by the officers, described in the lawsuit as "bullies."

According to the lawsuit, police arrested Jackson and, after treatment at a hospital, jailed him for three days, threatening a charge of felony resisting arrest. But the charge was never filed and he was released.

Craft says he was handcuffed and threatened with arrest if he didn't turn over the key code for Billingslea and Patterson to access the contents of his cellphone, which he used to record the encounter. Craft claims police slammed the phone, broke the screen and threw it into a garbage can, but it was later retrieved by another officer when Craft explained what happened.

Warning: Explicit language

Damian Wheeler says he is licensed to carry a concealed firearm. About 9:20 p.m. on April 18, 2017, he was walking into a gas station at 17046 Harper in Detroit when Billingslea came from behind Wheeler, grabbed him by the right arm, spun him around and said, "I'm going to hold you on that."

Patterson and two other unnamed officers surrounded Wheeler with guns drawn. Billingslea allegedly held his gun to Wheeler's neck and said, "You think you're hard, boss?" while Wheeler looked in his pockets for his CPL license. Wheeler claims he was injured when Billingslea "slammed" his head against a wall and twisted his arm.

Wheeler's gun was seized, but he was later released without being arrested or ticketed.

The lawsuit calls the officers "bullies" enganged in "thug-like" conduct.

Craft and Jackson v. Detroit police officers Billingslea and Patterson by Fergus Burns on Scribd