In a federal courtroom Oct. 23 — day one of what is expected to be a two-day jury trial — a homeless man accused an officer with the Springfield Police Department of using excessive force while arresting the man back in 2020.
The plaintiff in the civil lawsuit, 58-year-old Devin Ledbetter, now uses a wheelchair. Ledbetter is currently serving time in a Missouri prison for a conviction for unlawful use of a weapon, but appeared in court wearing plain clothes.
Ledbetter claims Officer Brandon Helmers picked Ledbetter up off the ground and slammed Ledbetter onto a piece of concrete, shattering Ledbetter’s pelvis and driving his femur bone through the back of his pelvis. Ledbetter also claims he was not resisting arrest, had willfully dropped his knife and was cooperating with the officers’ commands.
Helmers is represented by Christopher Hoeman, chief litigator in the civil division of the Springfield City Attorney’s office.
In District Judge Roseann Ketchmark’s court Oct. 23, Hoeman argued that Ledbetter was brandishing a large knife and not responding to the officers’ commands to drop the weapon. Hoeman also argued that Helmers did not lift Ledbetter into the air and slam Ledbetter down. Rather, Hoeman said the officer pulled Ledbetter down to the ground to handcuff him.
Ledbetter initially represented himself in the civil lawsuit, filing handwritten pleadings from the Greene County Jail in 2021.
In those early filings, Ledbetter asked for $8 million in damages and also named Police Chief Paul Williams and then-Corporal Gilbert Correa.
Ketchmark later dismissed Williams and Correa from the suit and appointed attorney Charles C. Eblen with Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. in Kansas City to represent Ledbetter.
According to court documents and information presented in court Monday, Helmers and Correa were responding to a 911 caller reporting that someone was being held against their will in a tent at a homeless encampment in the woods around 4 p.m. Dec. 16, 2020. When the officers approached the tent, they say Ledbetter quickly emerged from the tent and was holding a large knife.
The officers say Ledbetter at first did not respond to their commands to drop the knife but eventually dropped it. They say Ledbetter did not respond to commands to move away from the knife so Helmers pulled him to the ground to handcuff him.
Eblen argued in his opening statements that Ledbetter suffered a “catastrophic injury” during that arrest — comparable to injuries associated with significant “T-bone” car accidents or from falling off something more than 10 feet high. The injuries are not consistent with the officers’ claim that Helmers grabbed Ledbetter by the wrist and shoulder and pulled him to the ground, Eblen said.
Ledbetter testified he was hanging out and drinking with his friends at a homeless encampment and did not realize police had been called. Ledbetter testified he was inside a tent with another person when he heard the officers approaching and assumed they were another friend who had gone to collect firewood. He said he emerged from the tent with a knife they often used for cutting up firewood and was surprised to see an officer pointing a gun at him. Ledbetter said he complied with officers’ commands to drop the knife and put his hands in the air.
Eblen argued no force was necessary to handcuff Ledbetter that day. But even if jurors believe the officers’ accounts of what happened, Eblen argued, their story still doesn’t explain the extent of Ledbetter’s injuries.
“(Officer Helmers) made a decision to punish Mr. Ledbetter by lifting him up in the air and slamming him onto concrete,” Eblen said in his opening statements. “Police are very powerful. Police are public servants… but this is not about demonizing the police.”
“When they make a decision to use force that is not necessary, that causes harm,” Eblen said, “somebody also has to make sure police are held responsible.”
Hoeman, the officer’s city attorney, pointed out Ledbetter pleaded guilty to unlawful use of a weapon, a plea agreement that included admitting he displayed the knife in an “angry or threatening manner.”
On the stand, Ledbetter said he did not admit to displaying the knife in an “angry or threatening” manner and was tricked into that plea deal.
“For all what he did to me, I don’t think he should get away with it,” Ledbetter said when asked why he filed the suit.
The trial is expected to conclude Oct. 24.
