A dead man’s family is now suing police due to an episode that occurred three years ago where they knocked him off his bike, and caused his leg to be broken in three different places.
There is a police bodycam video that has been released showing that a Norfolk police officer knocked a man off his bike on Christmas Eve three years ago, breaking his leg in three different areas after the man failed to stop.
This incident occurred at 9 p.m. on December 25, 2018 when 43-year-old Derrick Rountree rode his bike past a Norfolk law enforcement vehicle on his way to a convenience store, according to the Virginian-Pilot.
Rountree admitted in his $1.5 million federal civil rights lawsuit that he filed in December of 2020 that he heard the officer’s siren, saw the lights of the law enforcement vehicle turn on, and heard the officer speaking over the loudspeaker, but said he didn’t stop because he didn’t think the officer was referring to him.
The complaint from the dead man’s family is alleging that he kept going and then turned around and went to his friend’s apartment where he was staying as a roommate in the Tidewater Gardens Public Housing Project, according to the Virginian-Pilot.
The officer yelled “stop” a number of times at Rountree, but he just kept going.
Officer Christie eventually caught up with Rountree and video showed that he knocked the suspect off the bike and then both men crashed to the ground.
Rountree was shouting in pain as soon as hit the sidewalk.
“Why you do that to me, bro?” the injured cyclist asked the officer. “I didn’t do nothing. D-n!”
“You have no lights,” Officer Christie replied. “I tried to stop you. You tried to run.”
Rountree continued to insist that he didn’t hear anything, but another officer said that they had repeatedly hit the siren to get his attention.
“Oh for real?” Rountree asked. “You serious man? I didn’t know you had to have a light for a bike.”
“You need a light for a bike,” the other officer said to him in the video.
The video showed that Rountree was screaming in pain once the officers attempted to help him up.
Police called for an ambulance and they transported Rountree to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital for treatment, according to the Virginian-Pilot.
After Rountree was released from the hospital, they charged him with the headlight offense and obstruction of justice. A judge eventually dismissed the obstruction of justice charge and fined Rountree $15 for not having a headlight on his bike.
The Norfolk Police Department investigated this incident and cleared Officer Christie of any wrongdoing.
After Rountree filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against Officer Christie and the rest of the Norfolk Police Department, he would ultimately be killed in front of a convenience store in Virginia Beach in the middle of the afternoon last summer.
Rountree’s family claimed that he was just an innocent bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was killed.
They have not made any arrests in Rountree’s death either.
“I know they had a reason to stop him, but they obviously didn’t have a reason to use that amount of force to stop him,” Christian Connell, the family’s attorney, told WTKR.
Not long after he was killed, Rountree’s family announced their intention to pursue the lawsuit on behalf of the dead man’s three children.
“The damage that he suffered doesn’t go away and the lawsuit doesn’t go away,” Connell said.
The lawsuit currently has a federal court date of March 29th.
“Some police officers do things that are uncalled for and this is one of those cases,” the attorney said.
