The court’s decision likely exhausts the last legal option for the family of Keagan Schweikle, who was killed by Officer Kyle Ellison in Benton in 2016.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The legal saga involving a Benton teenager who was shot and killed by a police officer has likely come to an end.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, brought by the parents of 17-year-old Keagan Schweikle, on Monday.
It’s been nearly ten years since Schweikle was shot and killed by police, and it’s been nearly nine years since his mother and father sued the Benton Police Department and the city.
“Why did the police department not explore other avenues?” said Dominic Schweikle, Keagan’s father, while at a press conference in 2016. “Setting up a perimeter, or immediately calling a crisis intervention officer to come speak with Keagan?”
According to court documents, Schweikle’s mother called 911 on October 17, 2016, claiming he was suicidal and had entered the woods with a gun.
Police responded to the 1200 block of River Oaks Drive, where they found Schweikle near the banks of the Saline River with a gun to his head.
Officer Kyle Ellison then ordered Schweikle to drop the gun, and as he moved it away from his head, Ellison shot him.
“Keagan was in a wooded area,” Dominic Schweikle said at the time. “He was a danger to no one but himself.”
A federal judge moved to dismiss the case against the city and the police department twice but was told by a higher court to take it up both times.
That led to an eventual trial in 2024, where a jury found that Ellison did not violate Schweikle’s constitutional rights or use excessive force.
“Unfortunately, police officers are too often put in situations where they must react by making a split-second decision based on their training,” Scotty Hodges, Benton Chief of Police, said in 2024. “This was one of those times.”
However, the jury did find that Ellison was trained poorly and held the city and former Chief of Police Kirk Lane liable.
They were ordered to pay Schweikle’s family $32 million.
“We’ve been through the emotions so many times,” said Dominic Schweikle after the trial. “And that was the hardest thing about the trial, is having to relive those moments of Keegan’s death.”
However, that $32 million won’t be paid.
After the jury trial, the district court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the ruling the jury reached was flawed.
“What you have are regular everyday folks who say, ‘Well, the police chief was at fault, but the officer was not at fault,” explained Robert Steinbuch, who is a professor at the William H. Bowen School of Law. “And then the judges step in at each level and say, ‘Sorry, that’s not how our law operates. If you don’t find the police officer liable, you can’t find the police chief and the police department liable.”
Finally, the family took their case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but on Monday, it officially declined to hear it.
“When a case is not taken up by the Supreme Court, it doesn’t mean anything,” Steinbuch said. “It just means they had other cases that they preferred to take. It is not a judgment on the merits one way or the other.”
Dominic Schweikle declined an on-camera interview on Tuesday but did send us a statement.
It reads in part, “The jury ruled unanimously the way they did for a reason. They watched the Benton PD officers’ testimonies and obviously saw enough discrepancies and inconsistencies to come to their unanimous decision. Benton PD and Kirk Lane were found guilty of failure to train and failure to investigate… Unfortunately, this decision allows police departments to continue to abuse authority and violate human rights, then cover it up.”
The attorney representing the city of Benton also sent the following statement:
“We agree with the Supreme Court’s decision and respect the process that has brought the case to its final outcome. While the courts ultimately affirmed our clients’ position, we remain mindful that this case stems from a profound tragedy. We hope that all parties can now find a measure of closure and move forward.”
However, the attorney representing Schweikle’s family did not respond to a request for comment.
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