Mother Files Wrongful Death Suit in Gastonia Police Shooting
Jason Lipscomb was killed in his car in 2022
The mother of a 21-year-old who was shot and killed by Gastonia police in 2022 has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Gastonia and three officers who were involved in the death of her son.
In the 80-page complaint citing the Monell Doctrine, Thelma Mackins alleges Gastonia Police Department (GPD) officers Juan Sepulveda, Jason Beaver and Harrison Hamorsky used excessive force fueled by racial discrimination when they gunned down Jason Lipscomb on July 20, 2022, as he attempted to drive away from police.
The lawsuit also alleges a darker history involving racial discrimination practices within GPD and calls Lipscomb’s killing “not a split-second mistake but a deliberate, unconstitutional choice.”
What happened the day Jason Lipscomb was shot
On July 20, 2022, Trinity Adams and her mother Tina reported the alleged kidnapping of Tina’s two sons and Trinity’s daughter — whom she shared with Lipscomb — from the children’s daycare to GPD.
While Lipscomb was authorized to pick up his daughter from the daycare, he did not have written permission to pick up Tina’s two sons. Daycare employees later said Lipscomb picked up the three children all of the time.
Because Lipscomb was not authorized to pick up Tina’s sons, she reported them as missing. In response to that call, uniformed GPD officers Hamorsky, Beaver and Ethan Brown arrived at Lipscomb’s parents’ house with Sepulveda, who was in plainclothes.
By the time officers Hamorsky, Beaver and Sepulveda arrived at the residence, all children had been returned safely to their mothers, which the officers knew, according to footage from Hamorsky’s body-worn camera.
Based on dispatch and radio traffic, Beaver, Hamorsky and Sepulveda only knew Lipscomb was the suspect in a child abduction call and did not have an arrest warrant for him. Despite this, officers continued to pursue Lipscomb after seeing him walking from the rear of the residence. Brown led a foot chase as Lipscomb ran to his silver Hyundai parked nearby.
Lipscomb did not brandish a weapon, make threats or commit violence against officers prior to entering his car, according to the suit. Brown approached the vehicle with his gun upholstered, pointing it directly at Lipscomb as Brown opened the driver side door after the car was started.
The lawsuit claims Brown placed himself in the trajectory of a moving vehicle without justification, as the children had long been secured and were out of harm’s way. Lipscomb reversed his car out of the parking spot, knocking Brown to the ground.
A GPD report of the incident from two days later states that Brown was taken to the hospital with serious injuries.
As Lipscomb attempted to leave the scene, officers shot multiple rounds into the vehicle from the rear and side. One officer emptied the magazine in his gun, reloaded, and kept shooting for a total of 21 rounds, the lawsuit stated. Another fired nine rounds while the third officer fired three rounds from 15 yards away.
Video from a neighbor’s doorbell camera captured the incident as it took place, as reported by WSOC two days after the shooting.
Lipscomb crashed shortly thereafter and would die at the scene. His autopsy showed multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, back, head, hands and legs, with the fatal shot traveling front to back through his chest.
The post-incident investigation conducted by the NC State Bureau of Investigation found that the fatal shot had been from one of the initial rounds fired from Sepulveda.
What the investigation found
Though the officers claimed the use of force was justified because Lipscomb hit Brown with his vehicle, it was later revealed that none of the shooting officers visually confirmed Brown’s position or condition before, during or after they fired, according to the suit, which stated “… their asserted justification rested solely on speculation rather than on an objectively verifiable threat.”
Additionally, cases Waterman v Batton and Williams v. Strickland ruled that once a moving car is past the officer, the officer is no longer in the trajectory of the vehicle or the vehicle was never aimed at the officer in the first place, the threat has ended and the trigger must be stilled.
Because Sepulveda, Beaver and Hamorsky each fired at the vehicle after it had cleared their positions and without confirming Brown’s whereabouts, the lawsuit claims that any potential danger had passed under, constituting unconstitutional deadly force.
”The scene was stark in its simplicity: No warrant. No missing children. No weapon. No threat,” the lawsuit said.
The officers knew that shooting at a vehicle after it passes officers and poses no threat is unconstitutional, violating GPD’s Use of Deadly Force Policy and Fourth Circuit rulings, the suit stated.
Two GPD officers on the scene did not discharge their weapons, confirming that a reasonable officer would have perceived no immediate threat, it continued.
The complaint further alleges that the city of Gastonia has cleared every officer-involved shooting of a Black civilian as “justified” in the past decade, including Lipscomb.
Public records and internal affairs data from 2013 to 2022 revealed that GPD exonerated its officers in nearly all complaints involving excessive force, misconduct or deadly encounters, especially those involving Black complainants, the lawsuit stated.
The complaint also alleges that the city of Gastonia has never disciplined or terminated an officer for the use of deadly force in at least the last decade.
“This pattern of zero accountability, combined with racial disparity in complaint outcomes, establishes a municipal practice of system indifference that made the unconstitutional killing of Jason Lipscomb foreseeable and inevitable,” the lawsuit reads.
Read more: Family Sues CMPD for Wrongful Death in Custody
Thelma Mackins is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and any other relief the court deems just against Sepulveda, Beaver and Hamorsky.
The complaint asserts that Mackins is entitled to recover punitive and exemplary damages under federal and state law to punish the officers for their “illegal, egregiously wrongful, reckless, willful, and/or wanton misconduct and to determine such conduct by others.”
“This case is not only about what these officers did — but about why they believed they could do it without consequence,” the complaint reads. “Mr. Lipscomb was not just killed by three officers — he was killed by a City that trained them, empowered them, and promised they’d never be held responsible.”
