The widow of a Springfield man who was shot to death by a Dade County deputy during a well-being check June 23 at Stockton Lake will receive a $300,000 settlement from the county, according to an agreement filed today in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
Under the terms of the agreement, the county admits to no wrongdoing, but is paying the settlement to avoid the cost of a lengthy litigation.
Judy Deering will receive $199,899, while her attorneys will receive $100,101, according to the settlement.
The lawsuit, which was originally filed in Dade County Circuit Court has been transferred to U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri.Judy Deering claims Dade County Deputy Eric Carrier shot her husband, Gary Deering, 74, to death at Stockton Lake June 23 after she called with concerns that Deering, a victim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, might harm himself and had access to a gun.
According to the lawsuit, Carrier shot Deering through the driver's side window of his vehicle, while the gun remained locked in a console.
So is Eric Carter still working for the Dade County Sheriff's Department?
ReplyDeleteYou have no right to post settlement information on your blog. That is private information. If you want the facts of this story you need to ask our family. We still don’t have Mr. Carrier gets to continue working and we have never found out what happened that day.
ReplyDeleteIt is not right to provide settlement figures to the public. The news and newspapers don’t even do this. That is just wrong. You need to remove that information immediately. If you want to know the facts of this story you need to ask our family. My mom lost her husband and friend. We can’t even get the investigation report but you are eager to post about a settlement. How terrible is that!!!
ReplyDeleteCathy, I certainly feel sorry for your family's loss, but you might want to consider that if I had not written about the lawsuit, the circumstances surrounding his death might never have been reported. The reason the news and newspapers did not report on this was because most of them do not cover what is happening in federal courts unless they have receive press releases about the cases. I take my information directly from the court documents, which in this case means that the story I told was the one that was presented by your mother's lawyer in the petition. Publicizing the amount that was paid out is an important part of the story, not only because the Dade County Sheriff's Office is a taxpayer-supported entity, but also because when the amount is $300,000, that indicates this was not a frivolous lawsuit and that Dade County officials did not want to let this case go anywhere near a courtroom. I understand your concerns, but I hope you can see the reasoning why the story was written the way it was.
ReplyDeleteI don’t have a problem with you writing the story but you need to know all the facts. However, posting dollars amounts everyone is getting is no necessary at all!! My mother would much rather have my stepdad here than any amount of money. However, Mr. Carrier took that away. Until you are in my mom’s shoes you have no idea what she is going through.
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