The family of a mentally ill woman fatally shot by a Fayetteville, North Carolina, police officer has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the department and city.
Relatives claim local law enforcement violated the 22-year-old’s rights when they shot and killed her in front of her grandfather, grandmother, and daughter.
The complaint further alleges the police knew the woman, Jada Johnson, from previous encounters and understood her mental illness challenges and her history of domestic abuse.
Attorneys Harry Daniels and Carnell Johnson announced the lawsuit, filed on behalf of Johnson’s heir and grandparents Richard and Maria Iwanski, during a press conference on Friday.
The lawyers named the city of Fayetteville, Sgt. Timothy Rugg, Officer Zacharius Borom, various unnamed city employees, and other members of the Fayetteville Police Department as defendants in the case.
At the crux of the family’s claim is that officers, Rugg and Borom, used excessive force when detaining Johnson at her grandparents’ home on July 1, 2022, and caused her wrongful death.
In the 36-page complaint obtained by Atlanta Black Star, the legal team submits that officers ignored the young woman’s mental illness and hysteria related to physical domestic abuse by her former partner, Devante Shamar Britton-Watson.
On the day of the shooting, officers were already cognizant of Johnson’s history of mental illness, allegations of her ex stalking her, and of her hospitalization earlier in the day, the complaint says.
Part of the exchange leading up to the shooting was captured on the family’s Ring camera. A Superior Court judge Jim Ammons ruled that the family and their attorneys could view the body camera video. However, lawyers could only take notes, and the family couldn’t speak to anyone about what they saw.
According to the filing, after police came to the house they believed Johnson was misusing 911 calls. Johnson, in her manic paranoia, had called the emergency dispatch several times that evening beginning around 9:40 p.m. every time she thought Watson was around, and as a result officers planned to arrest her.
Upon arrival, police were reminded by Johnson’s grandparents that she was in crisis and that within that week she’d had an encounter with law enforcement. Multiple officers attempted to use tools to calm Johnson down, but she was resistant, according to court records.
Johnson told them she was petrified about being assaulted again by Watson. But Watson was not around, and neither the officers nor her grandparents could persuade her that an abuser was not in the vicinity. Still, out of fear, the young mother repeatedly requested for the officers to take her to the hospital.
