Widow Files Lawsuit Against Fort Worth Police, Says Husband Was Unarmed
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FORT WORTH (CBS 11 NEWS) - The widow of a man shot by a Fort Worth police officer two years ago has filed a federal lawsuit against the police and the city, claiming he was unarmed and "presented no danger whatsoever" when officers shot him at his home.
"I really, truly know my husband wouldn't point a gun at police officers…he wouldn't hurt anyone," Kathy Waller said during a press conference with her attorney, Art Brender.
In the early morning hours of May 28, 2013, 72-year-old Jerry Waller was shot and killed when police confronted him inside the garage of his east Fort Worth home.
Officers Richard Hoeppner and Benjamin Hanlon, who were answering a home alarm alert and went to the wrong address, told internal investigators that Waller pointed a gun at them, prompting Hoeppner to fire his gun.
But Kathy Waller and Brender disputed that account, both saying the evidence shows that Waller was not holding his pistol when he was killed.
Brender went so far as to say police officers likely moved the body and the gun, disrupted other parts of the shooting scene, and waited six hours before calling the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office.
"Lots of things were moved …to somehow fit their goofy theory," that officer Hoeppner fired in self-defense, the attorney said.
A Tarrant County grand jury subsequently decided that no charges would be filed in the death of Waller.
Five months later, in an unrelated case, Hanlon was fired from the police department for allegedly lying in a report on a traffic stop.
Officer Daniel Segura, a spokesman for the police department, said there would be no comment in the Waller case, citing the pending litigation by Kathy Waller and the couple's two grown children.
At the press conference, Kathy Waller said her husband awoke to barking dogs and lights flashing in their backyard, prompting him to retrieve his gun to check out the disturbance.
Brender presented an animated video, depicting Waller in his garage, placing the gun down and raising his hands seconds before he was shot.
Kathy Waller said that when she stepped into the garage, she saw her husband lying on the floor, in a pool of blood, and thought he had simply fallen and cut his head.
In the lawsuit, she is quoted as telling the officers, "Get him up. He is on blood thinners!"
But when she approached her husband, according to the lawsuit, an officer yelled, "Get her out of here," and several officers took her to a patrol car.
"They put me in a police car," Kathy Waller said at the press conference, adding: "They said they were looking for whoever did this."
The lawsuit, which asks for unspecified damages, was filed in U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle's court in Dallas. Those named as defendants include the city of Fort Worth, Hoeppner and Hanlon, and former Police Chief Jeff Halstead, who has since retired from the department.
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