TACOMA — The family of a man shot to death last year by a Pierce County sheriff’s deputy in Spanaway is suing the county over the encounter, which started as a wellness check, alleging that it was unnecessary, negligent and a wrongful use of deadly force.
Jerome Holman, 39, was struck in the chest and back by five of at least six bullets fired on Jan. 27, 2022, as he reversed a minivan, pulled a U-turn and attempted to flee deputies in the parking lot of an O’Reilly Auto Parts, according to the recently filed lawsuit.
Moments earlier, Holman had been engaged in a “peaceful” conversation with one of three deputies who had been called to scene by the store’s manager after a customer reported that Holman was lingering in his van with his head slumped over, the lawsuit states.
It turned out that Holman had been sleeping.
“I would say he should not have tried to leave the scene, but the issue is whether that justifies pulling out your gun and shooting an unarmed man and shooting him to death,” attorney Jack Connelly, who is representing the plaintiffs, told The News Tribune. “And the answer to that is a resounding no.”
Jordan Williams, the deputy who shot Holman, later said he was afraid for the life of a fellow deputy, who’d run alongside the driver’s side of the reversing vehicle and struggled with Holman before rolling, according to previous reporting by The News Tribune, citing Williams’ written statement after the shooting and a review of body-worn camera footage.
“When the force stopped rolling me I continued to move in order to avoid being run over and killed,” deputy Devin Ditsch, a trainee at the time, wrote in his statement.
The Pierce County Force Investigation Team, also known as PCFIT, said in a news release following the shooting that Holman’s van, after a “high speed” U-turn, had been positioned “in such a way, that had he accelerated, the deputies were at risk of being struck.”
But Connelly said that body-worn camera footage showed that deputies were not in peril. The lawsuit claimed that Holman was distancing himself from the deputies when Williams “panicked” and repeatedly fired through a passenger window without warning.
“It was essentially a murder,” Connelly said.
Investigators forwarded the case in June 2022 to the Pierce County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Adam Faber, a spokesman for the office, told The News Tribune on Friday that the shooting still remains under review when asked whether the office had released an opinion on whether the shooting was justified.
“Regarding the complaint: Generally Pierce County does not comment on pending litigation,” Faber wrote in an email.
Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Darren Moss said the department also can’t comment on ongoing litigation.
The lawsuit was filed June 2 in King County by Holman’s father and mother and on behalf of Holman’s minor son. The case was ordered transferred, due to a technicality, to Pierce County Superior Court on June 30, where it appeared in the court’s online docket on Tuesday. Attorneys for the plaintiffs, seeking an unbiased setting, disputed the change of venue, court records show.
All three deputies were cleared to return to work the following month after the shooting, Moss previously said.
Lawsuit, investigation offers incident details
While parked in a van in front of the auto store, Holman exchanged text messages with his father from roughly 4:40 p.m. to 5:16 p.m., discussing buying items for an oil change and plans to meet up the next day, according to the lawsuit.
About 30 minutes later, the store’s manager called 911 for a wellness/welfare check. Investigative documents previously reviewed by The News Tribune indicated that a customer was concerned that a “gentleman of color,” who was slumped over, was either intoxicated or having a medical emergency.
Holman, who was Black and mixed race, awoke to hard knocks on the driver’s side door by Ditsch, who arrived at the scene with the two other deputies at roughly 5:51 p.m. and surrounded the van with their flashlights shining inside, according to the lawsuit and body-worn camera footage.
Prior to waking up Holman, a deputy on the passenger side noted a hammer and pocket knife beside him, the footage showed.
Holman apologized for sleeping, noted it had been a long day and began speaking to Ditsch through the now-opened driver’s side door. Although Holman sat calmly in his seat and the verbal exchange with Ditsch had been peaceful, the situation soon took a turn.
At roughly 5:56 p.m., about five minutes after deputies arrived, Holman started the van, attempted to close his door and began to back out of the parking lot “in an effort to get away from the unreasonable and unnecessary inquisition,” according to the lawsuit.
Body-worn camera footage showed that Holman’s driving privileges were suspended and a deputy reported over the radio that the vehicle’s license plate and VIN didn’t match, indicating the van could be stolen. Connelly said there was no clarity on whether the vehicle was stolen and, even if true, it didn’t warrant what happened next.
Ditsch pried the door open, “instead of backing away,” and ran alongside the van, reaching in through the open door in an attempt to pull Holman out, the complaint stated, adding that Ditsch then “tumbled down onto the ground and out of the path of the reversing vehicle.”
Holman reversed for 20 more feet, distancing himself from others, and had nearly finished a U-turn — swiping a patrol unit in the process — before he was shot in rapid succession through a passenger window, causing him to fall out of the van and onto the ground, according to the lawsuit. It stated that as guns-drawn deputies yelled for him to stop moving, Holman cried out: “I can’t believe you did this to me.”
Too quick to resort to deadly force?
Deputies handcuffed Holman and rendered aid, body-worn camera footage showed. He was pronounced dead at approximately 8:45 p.m. after undergoing emergency surgery and blood transfusions at a local hospital, according to the suit.
“The Pierce County Sheriff’s Office unreasonably and unnecessarily escalated what should have been a routine welfare check, handled it extremely unprofessionally and poorly, and then unnecessarily used deadly force to stop Mr. Jerome Holman from leaving a parking lot where he had not been accused of disrupting the peace or committing any crime,” the suit stated.
Holman’s toxicology test showed methamphetamine and fentanyl in his system, and investigators reported recovering a glass pipe and foil. One deputy noted “some tin foil with some brown stuff on it underneath (Holman)” inside the van prior to the shooting, according to body-worn camera footage. Neither investigators nor deputies did not document any signs of impairment or finding any drugs, The News Tribune previously reported.
Asked whether Holman had been suffering from an emergency at the time, Connelly answered in the negative.
The department’s use-of-force policy notes that shots fired at a moving vehicle “involve additional considerations and risks, and are rarely effective.” Deputies are expected to attempt to move out of the path of a moving vehicle when feasible rather than engage in gunfire.
The policy makes an exception: “unless necessary to protect against an imminent threat of serious bodily injury resulting from the operator’s or a passenger’s use of a deadly weapon.”
A vehicle is only considered a deadly weapon if being used as such by the operator, the policy states, and if “no other reasonable means to avoid potential serious harm are immediately available to the deputy.”
Connelly said that the shooting revealed a training issue within the Sheriff’s Department that needed to be addressed.
“In a situation like this, officers are too quickly resorting to deadly force,” he said.
