Gas Attendant On Hook For Fake 911 Call

Thanks to a federal judge’s ruling, the 911 caller is on the hook in a lawsuit — but Hamden, New Haven, and Yale are largely off the hook — for what happened to Paul Witherspoon and Stephanie Washington.

U.S. District of Connecticut Judge Vanessa Bryant has ruled that a Hamden gas station attendant who allegedly made a false 911 report about an armed robbery that started the case in question can be held civilly responsible for the injuries caused by two police officers who ended up shooting an innocent bystander.

Bryant issued that decision Tuesday in a 44-page memorandum in the case Stephanie Washington v. Devin Eaton.

She declined to grant motions to dismiss filed by the gas station attendant, Aziz Abdullattf, and by the gas station’s owner, T&S United LLC, related to an alleged false 911 report that Abdullattf made more than two years ago.

The judge’s decision allows Washington’s civil case to proceed against Abdullattf, the company that owns the gas station, and the individual officers who, responding to Abdullattf’s 911 call, opened fire on Washington and her boyfriend later that night. But the judge for the most part also spared the Yale and government agencies employing the cops in the case.

Bryant’s decision emphasizes that people can be held civilly liable for making false 911 reports that directly lead to an innocent bystander getting hurt by police.

“At issue is whether Connecticut law recognizes a cause of action for physical injuries inflicted on a bystander when police respond with excessive force to a false report of an armed suspect,” Bryant wrote when explaining why she is allowing the civil case to move ahead against Abdullattf and his employer. “Although the Amended Complaint is inartful insofar as it labels the cause of action upon which Plaintiff’s seeks relief, the Court infers that she is pursuing a negligence, recklessness, or other tort claim.

“Based on the prevailing tort principles in Connecticut, the Court concludes that Plaintiff plausibly stated a claim for negligence against Mr. Abdullattf and vicariously against T&S United, LLC.”

Click here to read Judge Bryant’s decision in full. Click here to read Abdullattf’s and T&S United LLC’s initial motion to dismiss, in which they argue that they should not be held liable for police officer actions they could not reasonably foresee taking place.

The judge’s decision marks the first movement in more than five months in a civil case that was first filed in federal court in August 2020—and that stems from an incident that occurred in the early hours of April 16, 2019.

That’s when Hamden Police Officer Devin Eaton and Yale Police Officer Terrance Pollock fired a total of 16 gunshots at Washington and her boyfriend Paul Witherspoon on Argyle Street near Dixwell Avenue soon after a gas station attendant at the Go On Gas / White Stone Mini-Mart in Hamden called 911 to report an attempted armed robbery of a newspaper deliveryman.

State investigators subsequently confirmed that neither Washington nor Witherspoon had any firearms on them at the time of the officer shootings.

After a months-long investigation, the state’s attorney’s office arrested Eaton—whose bullets struck Washington and sent her to the hospital—and charged him with one felony count of first-degree assault and two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment. That criminal case against Eaton is still making its way through state court, and is scheduled for a remote pre-trial hearing on Sept. 14. Eaton has not yet entered any pleas in that criminal case.

Click here, here, here, here, and here for background on this shooting and the large public protests that took place in its wake.

Claims Against New Haven, Hamden, Yale Dismissed

This federal lawsuit, meanwhile, is a separate, civil case dealing with that same barrage of officer gunfire at the unarmed couple in Newhallville in the Spring of 2019.

The initial civil lawsuit filed by Washington and her attorney John-Henry Steele leveled a total of 14 counts against Eaton, Pollock, the Town of Hamden, the Hamden Police Department, the City of New Haven, the New Haven Police Department, Yale University, the mayors of Hamden and New Haven, the police chiefs of Hamden, New Haven and Yale, the gas station attendant who made the 911 call, and the company that owns the gas station.

The civil suit seeks ​“full, fair and just money damages,” costs, post-judgment interest, attorneys’ fees, and other ​“fair, just and equitable” relief for the injuries Washington sustained from the officer gunfire.

In her decision issued on Tuesday, Bryant dismissed almost all of the claims filed against the municipal and private employers of Officers Eaton and Pollock.

Broadly speaking, these so-called Monell claims required Washington to show that Hamden, New Haven and Yale deliberately violated Washington’s constitutional rights through an official policy or custom in practice by their employees.

“Drawing all inferences in Plaintiff’s favour, she does not state facts to suggest that Officer Eaton and Officer Pollock’s allegedly unreasonable use of deadly force was a ​‘known or obvious’ consequence of the Town of Hamden’s failure to institute policies, protocols or provide specific training to give effect to the Agreement and Guidelines,” Bryant wrote.

“The remote risk of injuring innocent civilians during a crossfire between two officers from different jurisdictions failing to communicate with each other while responding to a ​‘non-emergency’ does not rise to the level of ​‘moral certainty’ to place the Town of Hamden on notice of the need to remediate this danger. Accordingly, the Court dismisses the Monell claim as to the Hamden Defendants without prejudice.”

Bryant offered similar rationale for why she agreed to dismiss many of the claims made against New Haven and Yale, too.

Claims Upheld Against Gas Station Attendant

The only motions to dismiss that Bryant explicitly turned down in her Tuesday decision were those filed by Abdullattf and T&S United LLC.

It is in this part of her decision that Bryant argues that people who make false 911 reports can be held civilly responsible for the actions of police officers responding to those calls.

“Since Mr. Abdullattf asked the police to come immediately to apprehend an armed and dangerous would-be robber, he should have foreseen that a police officer approaching Mr. Witherspoon would be prepared to use deadly force,” Bryant wrote.

In her decision, Bryant wrote that—based on Washington’s complaint—Witherspoon and the newspaper deliveryman “engaged in some sort of discussion near the late-night service window” of the gas station. Washington remained in the vehicle. About two minutes after the discussion, Witherspoon “tapped the back” of the newspaper deliveryman’s vehicle, who then drove off. “After witnessing their interaction, Mr. Abdullattf called 911 to report an armed robbery,” Bryant wrote.

“The gas station’s video surveillance shows no effort by Mr. Witherspoon to rob Mr. Rodriguez [the newspaper deliveryman] at gunpoint,” the judge wrote, summarizing Washington’s complaint. “Mr. Rodriguez later told state investigators that Mr. Witherspoon did not threaten him with a weapon.”

In their motions to dismiss, Abdullattf and the gas station owner argued that Abdullattf’s 911 call was “a privileged petition to the government for relief” and that the gas station owner could not have foreseen that Officers Eaton and Pollock would have responded to that call by opening fire and injuring Washington.

Bryant didn’t buy that defense.

“[P]olice action always involves the potential for harm and initiating police action knowingly and unjustifiably is dangerous conduct which must be discouraged and not encouraged by a grant of immunity,” she wrote. “Granting immunity would also be inconsistent with state law. Indeed, it is a crime in Connecticut to make a false police report. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 53a- 180c. Thus, the legislature has made clear those who make false police reports should be held accountable, not shielded.”

She also wrote that Washington has plausibly alleged that Abdullattf knew his report to the police was false when he made it, and that he may have made such a knowingly false report in retaliation for an earlier encounter with Witherspoon or based on “racial animus, recklessly assuming Mr. Witherspoon was carrying a firearm because he was an African American male with dreadlocks.”

As to whether or not the gas station defendants could foresee that the 911 call would lead to officers shooting Washington, Bryant wrote, “In this context the question is whether a shooting incident could be foreseen, not whether the way the shooting occurred could be foreseen.”

“As a matter of common sense and experience,” the judge continued, “police officers are more likely to approach a suspect who is reported to be ‘armed and dangerous” with their service weapons unholstered. Some of these encounters will end with police officers discharging their weapons, creating a foreseeable risk that a suspect or a bystander may be shot. The risk that officers would use deadly force in this case was amplified by the fact that the events occurred during the darkness of the early morning hours. ...

“If Mr. Abdullattf never falsely reported the robbery and had not falsely reported that Mr. Witherspoon was armed, Officer Eaton may not have shot at Mr. Witherspoon when he complied with his command to vacate the vehicle. Had he not discharged his weapon, Officer Pollock may not have fired his weapon and the volley of shots which struck Ms. Washington four times may never have commenced. Accordingly, the Court concludes that Plaintiff alleged that her injuries were a foreseeable result of Mr. Abdullattf’s false 911 call.”

At the end of the decision, Bryant lists the many counts that still remain active in the ongoing federal case, even after her dismissal of a handful against New Haven, Hamden, and Yale.

The counts that remain active include:

- Count One, Negligence as to Officer Eaton in his individual capacity;
- Count Two, Deprivation of Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment Rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as to Officer Eaton in his individual capacity;
- Count Three, Indemnification pursuant to Conn. Gen. Stat. § 7-465 as to the Town of Hamden;
- Count Four, Negligence as to Officer Pollock in his individual capacity;
- Count Five, Deprivation of Plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment Rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as to Officer Pollock in his individual capacity;
- Count Six, Respondeat Superior as to Yale University for Officer Pollock’s alleged negligence while acting in the scope of his duties as a university
employee;
- Count Ten, “False Report” as to Mr. Abdullattf, which the Court implies to state a tort claim(s); and
- Count Eleven, Respondeat superior as to T&S United, LLC for Mr. Abdullattf’s false statement while acting in the scope of his duties as the service station’s employee.

A scheduling conference for the case is slated to take place in early October.