A Colorado man who bolted from a minor traffic stop and was fatally struck by a car on a highway had been jolted with a police officer’s stun gun, a “criminal and reprehensible” action that left the man lying prone in the road while high-speed traffic approached, lawyers for the man’s family said Wednesday.
The Larimer County Sheriff’s Office released video of the Feb. 18 incident and it shows officers chasing Brent Thompson, 28, running toward Interstate 25 in Northern Colorado. It cuts off before Thompson is struck by the car.
But the law firm representing Thompson’s family released a lengthier video Wednesday that shows much more graphic and troubling footage, including Thompson lying immobilized on the highway after being stunned, with a wire from the stun gun still attached to his body as a car traveling at least 40 mph approached. One of the sheriff’s officers is heard on video saying, “s—t, s—t,” moments before Thompson is run over.
“The tasering of an individual in the middle of an interstate highway at night is criminal andreprehensible conduct and has no place in law enforcement, a statement from the law firm of Rathod Mohamedbhai said.
The body-worn camera footage depicts Deputy Lorenzo Lujan using the stun weapon on Thompson. He was shocked on the interstate 5.6 seconds before a car hit him, an investigation found.
Thompson died at a nearby hospital from his injuries, less than an hour after the traffic stop. Local prosecutors have declined to charge Lujan criminally, but District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin said Lujan’s actions show “poor judgment and possibly a need for additional and more robust training.” McLaughlin said he felt Lujan actions stopped short of “criminal culpability.”
Lujan was put on paid administrative leave following the incident and returned to work early July in a non-enforcement capacity while waiting for an investigation to finish, Larimer County Sheriff John Feyen told the Coloradoan, part of the USA TODAY Network. He remains employed as a deputy.
Attorneys representing Thompson’s family said that McLaughlin’s decision shows law enforcement officers are held to a different standard than the general public.
“The District Attorney’s decision not to bring criminal charges against this deputy is a travesty of justice,” the law firm said. “As unconscionable as it is locking a person in a police car on railroad tracks, it is even more unconscionable to tase someone on the interstate at night. Tasing a person on the interstate is a death sentence.”
According to Taser, the dominant manufacturer of Conducted Electrical Weapons, the circumstances of Thompson’s death on a major highway has never happened before, in which a Taser is used on a roadway and the target person died from a different means, McLaughlin said in a recent letter.
What led up to Thompson’s death
McLaughlin outlined the events leading up to Thompson’s death in his decision letter released last week. Here’s what investigators said happened:
- Lujan spotted a vehicle in the parking lot of the Best Value Inn & Suites with expired registration. The vehicle also seemed suspicious to Lujan because it was idling while parked at two different spots in the parking lot.
- When the car left the lot, Lujan followed it through local roads and onto I-25 after it “made a last-second maneuver” to the northbound I-25 on-ramp.
- Lujan continued following the car on the highway and turned on his lights to pull over the car as they approached an exit. The driver — later identified as Thompson — took the exit and stopped at the top of the off ramp.
- Thompson gave Lujan a false name, provided him with expired registration and insurance, and appeared to be under the influence.
- Lujan and Cpl. Matthew Bordewick — who had arrived as backup — confronted Thompson about providing a false name and tried to arrest him, but Thompson ran west down an embankment toward I-25.
- Lujan said, “stop or you’re gonna get Tased, stop,” as he chased Thompson, who attempted to jump over the guardrail but tripped and stumbled into the shoulder of the northbound side of the interstate.
- Lujan deployed his Taser for one cycle (five seconds), and as he approached Thompson, he said he saw a car traveling toward them that was “closer than expected.”
- Bordewick attempted to use his flashlight to get the driver’s attention to stop the car, but it was unsuccessful. The oncoming vehicle hit Thompson, who was in the right lane. Lujan was in the left lane, and Bordewick was in the shoulder at the time of the crash.
The driver of the vehicle that hit Thompson stayed on the scene and was cooperative with investigators, who determined the driver was in no way at fault in the case.
A toxicology report showed Thompson had a high level of fentanyl in his system, which the sheriff mentioned in his statement. Feyen called fentanyl the “silent but destructive player in this and so many other cases.”
The family’s attorneys said that Thompson was only suspected of expired registration and giving a false name to law enforcement when he ran from police.
“The Sheriff is more concerned with smearing the name of Brent based on information the deputy did not possess at the time of the murder rather than holding his deputies accountable. Blaming Brent for his death is callous and dishonest,” the firm said.
Why McLaughlin determined he wouldn’t file criminal charges
McLaughlin said that Lujan is not criminally liable in Thompson’s death, but with “the luxury of time,” he identified different choices the deputy could have made that could have led to a less tragic outcome.
But McLaughlin said his role is only to determine if criminal charges are warranted, not to determine if the sheriff’s office department policy was violated or if there were things the deputy could have done differently.
McLaughlin said this case did not meet the requirements necessary to file a charge of criminally negligent homicide — the main charge he considered in his review — because Lujan’s decision to deploy his Taser on Thompson was not a “gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would exercise,” per state law.
McLaughlin said evidence shows that Lujan believed “he was acting in a way that would reduce risk” to Thompson and people driving on the interstate, but in hindsight “his belief with respect to other motorists appears to have been incorrect, as the deputy seems to have exacerbated an already dangerous situation by temporarily immobilizing Mr. Thompson in a roadway with oncoming traffic.”
McLaughlin said investigators can’t know for certain if Lujan’s actions minimized possible injuries to other motorists, but that’s what Lujan believed based on the information he had at the moment.
“While the result of this decision was tragic, as a legal matter, once he decided that he could minimize injury by stopping Mr. Thompson from crossing the highway, the use of the Taser was probably the only use of force he had available,” McLaughlin said. “Thus, while the decision to use force at all and to use it on the interstate raise reasonable questions of judgment, the mere choice of the Taser (given its typical less-than-lethal characteristics) would not appear to violate the use of force statute.”
McLaughlin also said that Lujan was justified in pursuing Thompson, despite the low-level crimes he was suspected of at the time.
“While it is reasonable for the community to ask whether any pursuit of Mr. Thompson was necessary under the circumstances presented here, that is not the legal question that must be answered by the District Attorney,” McLaughlin said in his letter. “Under Colorado law, an officer is given the authority and, in fact, is expected to arrest persons suspected of engaging in criminal behavior.”
Lujan told investigators he thought he had time to deploy his Taser to stop Thompson from running further onto the interstate and “take him safely into custody” before any vehicles came, and his goal was to get Thompson out of the middle of the road to prevent a crash.
McLaughlin said evidence supports that was Lujan’s intent, and “while in retrospect it is clear he used poor, and ultimately tragic, judgment in deploying his Taser after Mr. Thompson was already in the traffic lanes of I-25, the split-second decisions here were not formed with evil intent and were made after a quick assessment of the possible dangers to Mr. Thompson and any motorists that may be impacted by his fleeing across the lanes of travel.”
With “the luxury of time” and hindsight, here’s what McLaughlin said Lujan could have done differently:
- Deploy his Taser sooner, before Thompson reached the interstate, though Lujan told investigators he wasn’t able to catch up with Thompson until Thompson tripped over the guardrail getting onto the interstate.
- Stopped pursuing Thompson and let him run across the road, which “would likely have led to a less tragic result.”
But the question of if the deputy was criminally responsible “does not rest on the fact that his decision was not the best, or correct, one under the circumstances,” McLaughlin said.
Feyen defended the deputy’s actions, acknowledging that “deputies are routinely faced with making split-second decisions in rapidly changing environments, and they don’t have the comfortable luxury of hindsight in those moments.”
“In this case, the suspect’s decisions created a potentially hazardous situation for motorists and the deputy was forced to make a choice: take action and try to prevent harm to the public, or stand back passively and hope no innocent people got hurt,” Feyen said in an email statement to the Coloradoan.
McLaughlin said that, if Thompson had survived, the DA’s office would have filed 10 charges against him, including a felony weapons possession charge for a gun that belonged to Thompson found in the car; six misdemeanors; and three traffic violations. Because he was out on bond at the time, he would have also been charged with violation of bond conditions.
Larimer County Sheriff’s Office policy on Tasers
The sheriff’s office policy states that a deputy may deploy their Taser if:
- A person is violent or is physically resisting
- A person has demonstrated an intention to be violent or physically resist and appears to present the potential to harm themselves or others
- Department policy also indicates several factors in which deputies should avoid using their Tasers “unless the totality of the circumstances indicates that other available options reasonably appear ineffective or would present a greater danger,” including if an individual is somewhere or doing something that may result in a collateral injury, like if they are operating a vehicle or if they might fall from something.
“A commonsense interpretation of those policies would seem to prohibit incapacitating an individual in a high-speed roadway,” McLaughlin said, but the department’s policy nor Taser’s official training advice specifically mention roadway safety, likely because there is no record of an incident similar to this one occurring before. McLaughlin said he “encourages and expects” discussions about adding roadway safety in the sheriff’s office Taser training moving forward.
Feyen said the department’s training and policy “provides a strong framework for deputies to continually assess the safety priorities and risks in any situation.”
“As first responders dedicated to helping others, we grieve the loss of life in any situation,” Feyen said. “We train our deputies to take decisive action with the information they have available in the moment. Unfortunately, in some cases, this results in unintended consequences. This incident is no exception, and multiple lives have been changed forever. Nobody wanted this outcome.”
Lujan was up-to-date with training on Taser use and has had a total of 26 hours of Taser training since joining the sheriff’s office in 2019, according to McLaughlin.
Who was Brent Thompson?
In an interview with the Coloradoan, Thompson’s parents and siblings described him as smart, witty, creative, caring and kind. His sister, Adrianne Thompson, said “he lit up a room,” and that “you wouldn’t leave an interaction with Brent without a smile on your face.”
His father, David Thompson, said his son was hardworking and enjoyed helping others, especially his family and friends.
“He was a really good, creative young man,” he said.
“Brent was 28, he had a lifetime ahead of him and he deserved an opportunity to grow and to grow with grace,” an attorney representing the family said.
“I had his back and he had mine,” his mother, Karen Thompson, said.
David Thompson said he saw the body camera footage of his son’s death and feels that McLaughlin’s decision to not charge the deputy shows he “could care less about my son.”
“Accountability needs to be done, and it needs to be done now,” he said.
An attorney said the family is exploring civil litigation to “pursue accountability.”
“We love and miss him every day,” Adrianne Thompson said. “I think of him all the time.”