Decertified Officer Suspended in Wake of 2 Civil Rights Suits
BY LINDA SATTER
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

The city of Eudora has agreed to take a decertified police officer off the streets as a result of two federal lawsuits that accused him of needlessly attacking four people with mace on two separate occasions.

The complaints, filed two months apart in U.S. District Court in Little Rock , contend that, not only did Kenneth Miller deprive three adults and a 13-year-old of their constitutional rights, but he acted as a police officer without authority, albeit with the city’s knowledge.

A hearing had been scheduled for Tuesday before Chief U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright, who was to consider the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order to stop Miller’s policing.

But the hearing proved unnecessary after the city agreed to enter into a consent decree prohibiting Miller from acting as an officer until he is recertified.

Lloyd "Tre" Kitchens, a Little Rock attorney who represents both sets of plaintiffs along with attorney Robert Bridewell of Lake Village, said Miller had once been a certified law enforcement officer but lost the certification — which is required of a police officer — after Eudora Police Chief Willie Gaston fired him March 21, 2002.

Gaston could not be reached for comment Tuesday about why he fired Miller. Kitchens said all he knew was the firing was "for cause."

Burt Newell of Hot Springs, an attorney for the city of Eudora, also did not know why Miller had been fired. But Newell agreed with Kitchens that the city reinstated Miller about two weeks later — over the chief’s objections and without notifying the Arkansas State Police or the Arkansas Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training, as required by state law.  The commission revoked Miller’s certification after being notified of his firing.

According to the first federal lawsuit, filed in February, Miller approached a woman and her 13-year-old daughter on June 15 in Eudora and asked the woman to move her car. The suit said Miller then threatened the girl "with physical violence, and pushed her."

The mother, Phyllis Westbrook, and her daughter, Katie, got into their car and drove down the road, but Miller ran after the car and sprayed them with mace through the open window, the suit said.

Westbrook drove home to get away from Miller, but he followed, pulled both females from the car and arrested the mother on a disorderly conduct charge, the suit said.

Kitchens said state police learned in November that Miller was back on the job illegally and that the agency informed city officials in person and in writing that Miller could not act as an officer without being recertified.

But Miller remained on the job, being paid by the city, until he was suspended without pay April 19, Kitchens said.

On April 20, Kitchens filed a lawsuit on behalf of Shirley Jean Avery and Richard Lambert of Chicot County.

The suit said that, at 1:40 a.m. Jan. 2, Avery was walking from a club to her car when Miller came up behind her "without warning" and sprayed her in the face with mace, temporarily blinding and choking her.

Miller then locked Avery into the back of his patrol car and sprayed her boyfriend, Lambert, with mace when he approached the car to help her, the suit said.

Both Avery and Lambert were charged with "disregarding a police officer," according to the suit.

Both Kitchens and Newell said Tuesday that they weren’t sure what steps Miller would have to take if he sought recertification but that for now he is not a member of the city police force of fewer than 20 officers.

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs continue to seek compensatory and punitive damages in their suits alleging civil rights violations.