By Loretta Park
Standard-Examiner
SALT LAKE CITY — The attorney representing a woman who was shot in the eye by a Morgan County sheriff’s deputy said her client will need at least two more surgeries.
Kristine Biggs Johnson, 43, of California, filed the civil rights lawsuit in U.S.District Court in Salt Lake City on Thursday. No date has been set for a hearing, according to the court website.
“She still wears a patch over her eye because she does not have an eye,” Rachel Sykes, who represents Johnson, said Friday. “She’s doing fine. She is working and trying to get her life put back together. but she needs at least two more surgeries. She still has no feeling no that side of her face. She can’t even feel her teeth. It’s definitely hard on her.”
Johnson is blind in her left eye.
Johnson, made news two years ago, after getting shot in the eye by Morgan Sheriff’s Sgt. Daniel Scott Peay following a chase that covered 32 miles on Nov. 25, 2012. At that time, Johnson then was known as Kristine Biggs. Sykes said Biggs has recently married.
Sykes contends that Peay didn’t need to shoot Johnson.
“She was clearly boxed in by three police vehicles,” Sykes said.
In the court document, attorneys claim that Morgan County did not create, adopt or update “policies, procedures, and/or protocols regarding the use of deadly force, specifically about when deadly force is permitted by law, and when it is not permitted.”
Peter Stirba, attorney for Morgan County, said Peay’s actions were justified. He said Johnson’s blood-alcohol level was nearly four times the legal driving limit, putting people at risk while she drove, according to a story by the Associated Press.
Sykes told the Standard-Examiner on Friday, “That’s totally irrelevant. When (Peay) shot her, he had no idea how much alcohol was in her system.”
Johnson entered guilty pleas on Jan. 7, 2013, to failure to stop at the command of a police officer, a third-degree felony; and driving under the influence of alcohol, a class C misdemeanor. She was sentenced in February of 2013 to serve three years probation through Adult Probation & Parole.
Davis County Attorney Troy Rawlings ruled in January of 2013 the shooting unjustified, but prosecutors did not file charges against the deputy.
Sykes said Johnson recently retained her law firm. They were contacted by Richard T. Williams’ law firm in Ogden to help with the case. Sykes is also representing the family of 22-year-old Darrien Hunt, who was shot to death by Saratoga Springs police officers in September.
Peter Summerill, a personal injury attorney in Ogden, said the fact that a county attorney found the shooting was unjustified “gives credibility to the claims that the force was excessive.”
Summerill does not represent anyone in the case. He said there is a growing public sentiment across the country that police today are using excessive force too often. A civil rights lawsuit case like this could take four or more years to resolve.
Rawlings’ two-page memo he released in 2013 summarized his findings regarding the actions of Peay.
“It is clear that Sergeant Peay’s subjective hypothetical concerns, fears and analysis of the situation, due to the fact that an aggressive Biggs posed an ongoing risk to some degree, drove his decision to end the situation with the use of deadly force. In his mind, he was protecting life from an aggressor in a vehicle who was not going to stop,” the report says. “The Davis County Attorney’s Office cannot and will not say that the shooting of Kristine Biggs is justified under the four-corners (of state law) ... because we believe that a better and more credible view of the evidence is that it was not justified. However, we also believe a unanimous jury would not convict Sergeant Peay of a crime when presented with all the evidence.”
Morgan County deputies initially signaled to Johnson to pull over on Interstate 84 because she had a broken headlight. Instead of complying, Johnson continued west on I-84, then crossed the median and headed east, entering Morgan, where she turned again and got back on the interstate, according to authorities.
Morgan sheriff’s officers called Utah Highway Patrol for help, and troopers put spikes on the highway. The two right tires and the back left tire on Johnson’s pickup truck were flattened, but she continued for another six miles before leaving the interstate at Exit 85. Officers followed her, and she led them onto Cottonwood Drive.
In a patrol car dash cam video, a Morgan deputy, with his service revolver raised, watches as Johnson’s vehicle strikes the rear of his patrol vehicle.
“Get out of the car!” the deputy is heard yelling at Johnson.
She then revs the truck’s engine, backs up, and appears to be attempting to drive away when the deputy yells again for her to stop. The video shows the deputy, who is off to the side of Johnson’s truck, firing a shot that strikes her.
Johnson put people and property at risk by fleeing while intoxicated, Rawlings states in his report. However, Peay’s shooting of Johnson “does not squarely fit with the letter, scope and intent” of state law as well as significant cases from the U.S. Supreme Court,” according to the report.
2014 Standard-Examiner