ESL police used excessive force by shooting man after bar fight, lawsuit alleges
A federal civil lawsuit accusing an East St. Louis police detective of using excessive force when he allegedly chased a man in his vehicle and shot him in the leg after a bar fight is getting a reset.
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Senior Judge J. Phil Gilbert rejected a default judgment recommended by Magistrate Judge Reona J. Daly in July. If accepted, it would have required the city of East St. Louis to pay the man, Dorian Hendricks, $825,035 in damages.
Gilbert essentially accepted the word of Detective Jason Hicks and other defendants with the city of East St. Louis that they had failed to answer the complaint last year because they didn’t receive summonses or know they were being sued.
“The Defendants may have been neglectful, but mere neglect is insufficient (to impose a default judgment) — especially in cases such as this one with grave accusations of police misconduct and over one million dollars in damages at controversy,” the judge wrote in his order.
Hendricks filed the complaint on Oct. 10, 2023, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois in Benton, nearly a year after the shooting. This summer, he asked for a default judgment of $1.5 million in damages due to the failure of Hicks and other defendants to answer.
The other defendants include East St. Louis Police Department, Police Chief Kendall Perry, Assistant Police Chief Nick Mueller and the city of East St. Louis.
Longtime process server Jim Mourney testified at an Oct. 17, 2024, hearing before Gilbert that he served summonses to all the defendants on Oct. 25, 2023, giving those for Perry, Mueller and Hicks to a man at the police department who identified himself as the chief, answered to Perry’s name and gave his age as 51, the same as Perry’s.
At the hearing, Perry maintained that it wasn’t him.
“Chief Perry testified, and the Defendants presented evidence to corroborate, that he was at a speaking engagement elsewhere and had taken the day off,” the judge wrote in his order.
Mourney also testified that he served a summons to the city of East St. Louis by giving it to City Manager Robert Betts’ executive assistant, following common practice, but Betts later maintained that the woman, a relatively new employee, didn’t pass it on to him.
While Gilbert ruled in favor of the city by rejecting the default judgment, he denied its request to dismiss Hendricks’ lawsuit altogether. City attorneys had argued that the summonses weren’t served within 90 days of being issued, as required by state law.
“(Hendricks and his attorney have) established good cause for failing to validly execute service — they were of genuine belief that service had been validly executed on multiple defendants,” the judge wrote.
Hendricks is a Belleville resident. In his complaint, he alleges that Hicks used excessive force against him on Oct. 25, 2022, violating his Fourth Amendment right not to be subjected to unreasonable search and seizure.
The complaint gives the following timeline for that night:
- Hendricks and his brother went to Da Beno Nite Club in the 6800 block of State Street in East St. Louis with friends.
- A fight broke out between people that Hendricks had just met.
- Those people “jumped” Hendricks’ brother, and Hendricks was hit on the head a couple of times.
- The brothers left the nightclub and drove away as the people involved in the fight had guns drawn.
- Detective Hicks, who was working security at Da Beno while on duty with the police department, followed the brothers down a dead-end street in an unmarked police vehicle.
- Hicks jumped out of the vehicle without identifying himself as a police officer and started shooting at the vehicle Hendricks was driving.
- Hicks continued shooting as Hendricks reversed his vehicle and drove back out, passing Hicks.
- Hendricks was shot in the leg, causing “serious wounds” and prompting him to pull over and get in the back seat of his vehicle.
- Hendricks crossed into Missouri, where his parents took him to the hospital for treatment.
The complaint states that Hendricks suffered permanent injury, losing partial use of his left leg, due to “unnecessary, unreasonable, unlawful and unjustified” actions by Hicks.
“(Hendricks) has suffered and will continue to suffer substantial past and future damages, both compensatory and general, including but not limited to medical bills, loss of income, severe emotional distress, mental anguish, embarrassment, humiliation, disfigurement, and physical pain,” it states.
The complaint lists four counts, including excessive force (by Hicks), Monell liability (of the police department and city), intentional infliction of emotional distress and battery.
In regard to Chief Perry and Assistant Chief Mueller, the complaint alleges that they have shown a pattern of tolerating violence and excessive force by police officers and covering it up by charging local residents with crimes.
The complaint also alleges that Perry and Mueller had been allowing Hicks to work security at Da Beno while on duty with the police department, despite their own policies against it.
A search of St. Clair County Circuit Court records showed no criminal charges against Dorian Hendricks.
