Kevin Elnicki, owner of Earth Waste Systems in Rutland, filed the action in federal court in Vermont last week claiming the officer used “unjustified” excessive force. Elnicki is seeking unspecified damages.
“Most people don’t get dragged out of their car at gunpoint just for speeding,” said Matt Hart, an attorney representing Elnicki. “This shook him pretty bad.”
The lawsuit names the city, the Police Department and Officer Ryan Ashe as defendants.
Rutland Police Chief Brian Kilcullen said Tuesday that the lawsuit “would be dealt with through the proper channels, and other than that, no comment.”
Mayor David Allaire declined to comment as well. Ashe could not be reached Tuesday for comment.
The incident leading to the lawsuit took place around 3:15 p.m. on Dec. 20 as Elnicki was driving a Kenworth flatbed truck with a 40-yard roll-off waste container on Route 7, heading north out of the city, according to the filing.
When he saw the flashing blue lights behind him, the lawsuit states, he looked for a place to pull over, eventually stopping in the Thomas Dairy parking lot in Rutland Town.
He then rolled down his window and saw Ashe approaching him with his pistol pointed at the cab of the truck, screaming at him to get out of the vehicle, Hart wrote in the lawsuit.
Ashe, using an obscenity, told Elnicki he was lucky he didn’t get shot, according to the lawsuit, and yelled at him for speeding on North Main Street and not stopping sooner. North Main Street in Rutland City turns into Route 7 outside the city.
“Officer Ashe then proceed(ed) to forcibly remove Mr. Elnicki from his elevated truck cab, causing Mr. Elnicki to slam to the frozen ground where he was pinned, causing pain and injury to Mr. Elnicki,” Hart wrote.
The officer claimed, the lawsuit says, that Elnicki had tried to elude him.
“A request for all videos of the incident was made by Mr. Elnicki through his attorney only to be told that none existed,” according to the filing.
Hart said Tuesday he requested video from the Police Department within a week of the incident.
“There’s a dash (camera) in every city police cruiser,” the attorney said. “Maybe they wouldn’t preserve it for a normal speeding ticket.”
However, in a case such as Elnicki’s stop where a gun was drawn, Hart said he thought the dash camera video would be kept for a period of time.
Kilcullen, the police chief, declined to comment Tuesday on the status of the dash cam video.
“I just got this yesterday,” he said of the lawsuit. “We’ll compile whatever we can associated with this particular case and then we’ll forward it to our attorney.”
Elnicki suffered “pain, emotional trauma, discomfort, fear, anxiety and embarrassment” as a result of the incident, Hart wrote in the filing.
The attorney said that although his client did not require hospitalization, Elnicki has received counseling to cope with the situation.
Hart filed another case against the city Police Department last week on behalf of Charles Greeno, the owner of The Local nightclub in Rutland, alleging that harassment and biased policing helped lead to the establishment’s closing.
The attorney called the filing of the two lawsuits against the city within a week “a coincidence of timing.”
Elnicki’s Earth Waste Systems, a trash, recycling and scrap metal management company, is based on the same street as the Police Department and only a short distance away.
No criminal charges were filed in connection with his stop.
Elnicki was issued four civil tickets totaling $869. They list violations of speeding, for driving 46 mph in a 35 mph zone; failure to obey an officer; operation on approach of law enforcement vehicle; and failure to have a license.
Hart said Elnicki, who lives part of the year in Florida, has a valid license in that state. He is fighting the four tickets, the attorney said.
The reason Elnicki didn’t pull over immediately, the attorney said, was that he was driving such a big truck and Route 7 has very little room on the shoulder.
Hart added, “(The officer) accused Mr. Elnicki of trying to elude police in that huge dump truck.”
