Courtesy Jesse Britton

Courtesy Rick Thompson

Courtesy Messages written by Jesse Britton's friends on the front window of the abandoned Frontier Bar where Britton was shot. (Click image to see larger picture.)

Photo by Terri Davis graphic The cover of our feature story in February showed a makeshift memorial in front of the Frontier Bar.

Courtesy Crawford Police Chief Rick Thompson's mug shot taken the day he was arrested for second-degree assault after shooting 16-year-old Jesse Britton

The mother of a 16-year-old Crawford boy, shot and killed by Crawford Police Chief Richard “Rick” Thompson last year, plans to file a wrongful death lawsuit but it hasn't been filed yet.

FREE Mobile Banking NOW AVAILABLE!

Attorneys for Pat Britton, mother of teenager Jesse Britton, will file the lawsuit against Thompson, the City of Crawford and Dan Kling, a Nebraska Game and Parks employee in the near future.

The lawsuit will be filed in U.S. District Court and the trial will take place at the federal building in North Platte.

Recent news reports, including from the Omaha World Herald and the Associated Press, that the lawsuit was filed in Scotts Bluff County District Court are incorrect. Robert Chaloupka, an attorney from Scottsbluff, intends to file the lawsuit but it will be in federal court.

The North Platte Bulletin obtained a copy of the lawsuit Wednesday.

Crawford is a community of 1,100 people near Fort Robinson State Park that had been rocked by a number of burglaries.

Britton was a suspect in the burglaries around Crawford and Thompson had been looking for him.

On Oct. 3, 2007, Thompson got a tip that Britton was hiding in an abandoned bar in downtown Crawford. Thompson placed two officers outside the bar and he and Kling went inside.

The men located Britton in an upstairs room when he popped up from behind a desk, according to sources. Britton was pointing a .22-caliber Ruger pistol at Thompson. The unloaded gun later turned out to be one that had been stolen in the recent burglaries. Thompson ordered the boy to drop the gun. When he didn’t, Thompson fired three times and hit the teen with his third shot. Kling fired twice and both shots hit Britton.

The boy died at the scene.

A Dawes County grand jury indicted Thompson for second-degree assault in Britton's death. He was placed on unpaid leave by the City of Crawford.

Thompson has said he acted in self-defense.

A motion to dismiss the lawsuit by Thompson’s attorneys is pending in Dawes County District Court. All motions and briefs have been sealed pending the decision.

Pat Britton’s lawsuit says that her son had a criminal history of four cases but all were in juvenile court and for non-violent offenses. The lawsuit said Britton had no mental illness and that he posed no threat to Thompson and Kling.

The lawsuit said the officers had no reason to rush taking Britton into custody and that they had the manpower to insure he couldn’t escape the bar.

Thompson and Kling should have tried to de-escalate the situation using conflict resolution techniques, according to the lawsuit, and there was no excuse to escalate the encounter to the point of deadly force.

The lawsuit said the officer’s actions were “inspired by malice and callous disregard for Jesse’s (Britton’s) life.” It called the shooting “reckless.”

The whole story

Britton had dropped out of Crawford High School just four days before the shooting. He was a troubled teen who and a suspect in a series of burglaries.

Britton had been to juvenile court and convicted of possession of alcohol and tobacco, being uncontrollable, criminal trespassing and criminal mischief.

Britton had been removed from his home by the Department of Health and Human Services and placed in various shelters. He had even been sent to youth detention at YRTC in Kearney in the past.

Britton was unhappy, according to friends, and was burglarizing homes because he wanted to be removed from his home. Britton lived with his mother, Pat, but was not getting along with her.

Friends said Britton decided to commit a series of felony burglaries so he would be shipped back to YRTC in Kearney. He was eager to get caught, they said, and knew it would take felonies to insure his commitment at YRTC.

Britton had stopped attending school but was not staying at home the week before the shooting. Britton had also made threats to kill the Crawford school superintendent, a fellow student and Thompson. Those threats had caused the school to go into lockdown.

The pressure was on

Those 12 burglaries in the fall of 2007 were a problem for Thompson, the police chief. The victims and other Crawford residents wanted an arrest. They wanted the burglaries solved.

Thompson wanted to arrest Britton, his main suspect, but had not been able to locate him.

Thompson and Britton were well acquainted through all the boy’s brushes with the law.

On Oct. 3, 2007, Thompson received a tip that Britton was holed up in the abandoned Frontier Bar in downtown Crawford.

Thompson suspected that Britton might be armed since a handgun had been stolen in one of the burglaries just a few days before.

That morning Thompson was investigating a burglary at a local restaurant when Dan Kling of the Nebraska Game and Parks Division walked in to eat breakfast. Thompson asked Kling if he would help him search the abandoned bar for Britton. Kling agreed to help.

Thompson called for two of his three police officers to set a perimeter around the abandoned bar in case Britton ran for it.

Around 10 a.m., they were ready.

Thompson and Kling first noticed that the door had been kicked in. They entered.

The bar was dusty and dark and the electricity had been shut off. The bar had been closed for about a year.

The men began to search the first floor when they heard someone walking upstairs. They decided to investigate.

Up a narrow stairwell was the bar’s office and a storage area. There were no windows in the office so it was completely dark.

Thompson turned on his flashlight, drew his gun and walked up the stairs. Kling waited at the bottom of the stairs until Thompson reached the second floor office. Then he followed.

Shining his light around, Thompson located Britton crouching behind an old desk.

“Show me your hands, show me your hands,” Thompson yelled.

Britton slowly rose from his crouching position and pointed a .22-caliber Ruger pistol directly at Thompson. The gun later turned out to be the stolen gun from a recent burglary. It was not loaded.

“Drop it,” Thompson yelled, “Drop it.”

Then Thompson pulled the trigger on his own gun.

Kling, standing further away, was jolted by the shot and worried that Thompson might have been shot. He turned and began firing.

Thompson fired two more times and hit Britton with his third shot.

Both of Kling’s shots hit Britton.

Any of the three shots could have been fatal. The boy died at the scene.

Grand jury convened

Nebraska law requires any death in police custody or in the process of apprehension be investigated by a grand jury.

A grand jury is body of persons, in this case 16 members, sworn to inquire into crime and bring an accusation, or indictment, against the suspected criminal if warranted. Witnesses must appear before grand juries and are not allowed a defense lawyer. Grand juries are held in secret without a judge present, only the prosecutor who is seeking the indictment.

Grand jurors can question a witness themselves but prosecutors generally run the show, which leads to the old adage that most prosecutors can get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.”

Grand juries are uncommon in Nebraska but are convened whenever someone dies in police custody. Officers are almost never indicted unless the grand jury believes the officer was criminally liable.

Morrill County Attorney Jean Rhodes was appointed special prosecutor. She hired three special investigators - Scottsbluff Police Detective Mark Overman, Sheridan County Sgt. Scott DeCoste and retired Federal Bureau of Investigation Agent Ronald Rawalt of North Platte.

Shortly after the incident, Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said that since Britton had been shot after pointing a gun at the officers and ignoring their orders to drop the weapon, he fully expected the officers to be exonerated.

The grand jury met for seven days, many times into the evening hours. It indicted Thompson for second-degree assault, defined as “recklessly causing bodily injury to another person with a dangerous instrument.”

Thompson was suspended without pay after the incident. After Thompson was charged with the crime, he was released after posting 10 percent of $50,000 and was ordered not to enter the city limits of Crawford without court permission. He was also prohibited him from having any guns in his house.

Thompson lives on a farmstead about two miles out of town. He has not been able to watch his teenage daughter play basketball in Crawford this year.

Pat Britton, the teenager's mother, filed a $1 million claim against the City of Crawford, saying Thompson deprived her son of his rights to due process and fair treatment under the law. The claim said Thompson “failed to follow reasonable procedures, protocols and standards which should have been expected from a reasonable police officer under the circumstances.”

After the city took no action for six months, the federal lawsuit was filed.

Chief claims shooting justified

Thompson maintains that he acted in self-defense.

Thompson’s attorneys say the indictment is not supported by facts.

During a court hearing earlier this year, Thompson's attorney Michael Javoronok cited irregularities in the grand jury proceedings that resulted in Thompson’s indictment.

In a motion to dismiss the charge, the defense also questioned the involvement of special investigators Overman, DeCoste and Rawalt in the grand jury proceedings.

The investigators were all present during the grand jury proceedings and even questioned the witnesses, which the defense contends is a violation of the grand jury statutes.

None of the investigators are attorneys and Thompson’s lawyers wonder if Nebraska statutes didn’t prohibit that.

The defense says the presence of the special investigators, questioning of witnesses by special investigators and the special investigators offering their opinions of Thompson's actions resulted in prejudice against his client.

The motion referred to the "antics of at least one of the special investigators before the grand jury" but does not detail what those actions were.

The defense sought transcripts of the grand jury proceedings but Dawes County District Court Judge Brian Silverman declined to turn them over. Silverman has been off recently due to illness but is expected to return Oct. 7, according to the Chadron Record.

According to the motion filed by the defense to dismiss the charges against Thompson, the defense said it needed transcripts of the grand jury proceedings. They say that they know some irregularities that occurred but believe there are many more.

The defense only has a hint of what transpired in that grand jury – the sworn testimony of Thompson and Kling and another one of Thompson’s defense lawyers, Chadron attorney Marty Connealy.

Silverman said he would not rule on the defense's motions to dismiss until he has reviewed transcripts of the grand jury proceedings and all filings. He said he would preserve the secrecy of the grand jury and review the transcripts himself. He will give the defense copies of those sections covering direct questions to Thompson and the defendant's responses.

The defense also questions Rawalt's status as a peace officer. Rawalt was deputized as a Morrill County sheriff's deputy during the investigation. It was also Rawalt who did most of the problematic witness questioning.

“The state admitted irrelevant evidence that so inflamed and excited the passions of the grand jury against the defendant (Thompson) that its decision to indict was not made fairly or impartially,” the defense motion read. “The grand jury’s inconsistent decision to indict the defendant but no Officer Kling is evidence of its bias toward the defendant.”

A community divided

Thompson has served 23 years in law enforcement. He was a Lincoln County sheriff’s deputy from November 1979 to April 1980. He also worked as a police officer in Gothenburg and was the sheriff of Garden County. He also worked in Colorado and Wyoming. He had been police chief in Crawford since 1999. He ran unsuccessfully for Dawes County sheriff in the Republican primary in 2002.

An impromptu vigil for Britton on the evening of the shooting attracted as many as 200 people, local residents said. Some people placed signs on the building where Britton died and wrote messages on the windows.

Other residents complained of police brutality and misconduct.

Dennis Lyons, a Crawford resident who was an outspoken critic of Thompson in the past, said he was not surprised that Thompson had been charged.

Earlier, Patricia Britton had criticized Thompson for singling out her son as a suspect in the string of burglaries without considering other suspects. She believed the chief had a vendetta against her family.

Waite, Thompson’s attorney, said Thompson has children himself and felt sorry for Britton.

The issue has divided the community.

Some residents believe that Thompson was left with little choice when Britton pointed the gun at him. They support the chief and believe he acted in self-defense.

But critics say Thompson was in a hurry to arrest Britton and rushed in without the proper number of men. They say he should have waited and called the Nebraska State Patrol to assist. They believe Thompson could have taken several different courses of action to force Britton to give up.

Critics also charge Thompson didn’t identify himself as an officer as he walked up the stairs and entered the room and that Britton might not have known who it was, especially with a flashlight pointed in his eyes.

The case has received national attention and many law enforcement groups have raised money for Thompson’s defense, including the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office FOP #26.

North Platte attorney Terry Waite, who also represents Thompson, said his client was grateful for the outpouring of support he’s received from a nationwide coalition of law enforcement officers.

“Those officers have sympathy for an officer who had a gun pointed at his face and what happened after that,” Waite said. “This was a tragedy for all concerned as Rick Thompson knew Jesse beforehand. Rick Thompson has teenage children of his own and feels sympathy for the boy’s mother.”