by Dave Waddell
posted Oct. 10
SACRAMENTO – Jurors on Wednesday (Oct. 9) viewed video clips from Chico police officers’ body-worn cameras that captured the last instants of Tyler Rushing’s life.
A dominant color in the scene was the bright red of Rushing’s blood framing his semi-prone body. After bleeding out for the better part of an hour following a serious gunshot wound to his chest from a private security guard, Rushing was shot twice more by a Chico police sergeant and lay on the floor of a title company’s women’s restroom.
Rushing’s buttocks were exposed, his shorts apparently having been pulled down by a biting police dog during a slippery, chaotic struggle with several officers.
In those videos from July 23, 2017, three officers have their Glocks trained on the seemingly motionless Rushing for a minute or so when officer Alex Fliehr suddenly begins shouting that Rushing was alive and moving.
Asked whether Rushing was resisting arrest when the taser was used, Fliehr said he was “passively resisting” and “not giving up.”
“I saw Tyler Rushing flinch,” Fliehr testified Wednesday.
Fliehr then tased Rushing, his body bouncing from the jolt of electricity before returning to its motionless state.
The necessity and effect of that taser blast are the focus of a civil rights lawsuit brought by Tyler’s parents, Scott and Paula Rushing of Ventura, that is playing out this week in federal court.
The trial continues today (Oct. 10) with Scott Ruppel due to resume his testimony in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California at the Robert T. Matsui Federal Courthouse, 501 “I” St., in Sacramento. Ruppel is the now-retired Chico PD sergeant who shot Rushing to his death.
On the night he was killed, Tyler Rushing was observed behaving strangely before attacking and cutting the security guard, Edgar Sanchez, with a glass flowerpot at Mid-Valley Title & Escrow at Sixth and Main streets in Chico. Ruppel had tried without success for about 40 minutes to talk Rushing out of the restroom, before police rammed into the room with the biting canine. After Rushing hit officer Cedric Schwyzer in the head with a piece of porcelain from a broken toilet, Ruppel grabbed Rushing by the throat with one hand. Rushing then stabbed Ruppel in the neck with a pen he had pulled from an officer’s shirt pocket, prompting Ruppel to unholster his handgun and fire twice from close range, sending Rushing to the restroom’s bloody floor.
Schwyzer’s head wound required six stitches, while Ruppel’s neck wound was minor and treated only with glue, according to Wednesday’s testimony.
Preceding Ruppel to the witness stand were Fliehr, Schwyzer, and Jeremy Gagnebin – the three Chico officers in the restroom after Ruppel departed. They all contended under questioning that Rushing, even after being shot three times, remained a threat to them.
“Our safety is our No. 1 priority,” Gagnebin told the court.
The officers testified that at one point during the standoff Rushing told them: “You’re all going to fucking die. I love it.”
The officers claimed that they were worried that if they tried to handcuff Rushing, he might ambush them, and they would be forced to shoot him again. They spoke of the possibility that Rushing, despite being on the floor and turned away from them, might be “lying in wait” and “playing possum.” The taser, they said, was a “less-than-lethal” way of getting Rushing under control so that he could be attended to medically.
“You were fearful he would jump up when there were two other officers standing right beside you?” Rushing attorney Mark Merin of Sacramento asked Fliehr.
Later, in questioning Gagnebin, another of the Rushings’ attorneys, Robert Chalfant of Sacramento, noted that the three officers in the room with Tyler had all been trained in going “hands on” with suspects and that Schwyzer had experience as a mixed martial arts fighter.
“And there was only one of him?” Chalant asked Gagnebin.
“He was trying to harm and kill us still,” replied Gagnebin.
“You thought he could somehow get past you?”
“Yep.”
Attorneys for the Rushings questioned the officers on why they didn’t use pepper spray or various police holds to subdue Tyler or properly warn him that he was about to be shot by the taser.
The jury is being asked to determine whether the tasing by Fliehr was excessive force, and, if so, whether Gagnebin and Schwyzer should have intervened to prevent it from occurring.
Dave Waddell is a contributing writer to ChicoSol covering the civil rights trial.