The parents of a Mercer County teen killed by a state trooper last year are suing that trooper and the West Virginia State Police.
Timothy Hill, 18, was unarmed when Senior Trooper B.D. Gillespie shot and killed him in the early morning hours of June 13, 2014, following a brief struggle at the foot of Hill's driveway in Kegley. During the struggle, Gillespie pepper-sprayed Hill and hit him with a baton before they both tumbled to the bottom of a ditch where Gillespie said Hill reached for the trooper's gun. Gillespie then shot Hill twice, once in the head and once in the chest.
Hill's parents, Michelle and Robert Hill Jr., claim the shooting was malicious and done with reckless disregard of their son's rights.
The shooting was "atrocious, intolerable and so extreme and outrageous as to exceed the bounds of decency and morality," attorneys wrote in the complaint filed Tuesday in Kanawha Circuit Court. Charleston attorneys Robert Berthold Jr., Michael Olivio and Stephanie Mullett filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Hills.
The lawsuit alleges wrongful death, civil rights violations and unlawful arrest.
"It's difficult to imagine any circumstances where an unarmed teenager, who had not committed a crime, would be shot by a police officer not once but twice, resulting in his death," Berthold said.
The Hills also allege that the State Police doesn't properly screen potential troopers, or properly train and monitor troopers.
Prior to Hill's death, Gillespie had used force eight times in his three years with the State Police, including twice shooting and killing dogs that were allegedly acting aggressively.
The Hills allege that the State Police does not properly investigate killings involving its officers. The investigation of Gillespie, as is usually the case, was led by fellow troopers.
State Police referred questions about the lawsuit to a lawyer.
Gary Pullin, a lawyer for the State Police, said he had not yet seen the Hill complaint, but that those allegations were typical.
"The professional standards unit that conducts these investigations, they're very fair and impartial and very objective and sometimes they get accused of not supporting their fellow troopers," Pullin said. "Lots of different groups have looked at that and concluded that it is a good, fair and impartial way of investigating these types of allegations."
Pullin was unable to name the groups he was referring to, but noted that the Legislature has repeatedly declined to impose any sort of civilian oversight committee on the process, despite several proposals to do so.
The lawsuit is assigned to Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey.
A Mercer County grand jury decided not to indict Gillespie on any charges last year after an investigation led by a fellow trooper and Mercer Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ash. Earlier this year, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed its Civil Rights Division was reviewing the case.
Hill and Gillespie, who both lived on the same street, had at least one previous run-in, concerning Hill riding a dirt bike in the street. About four months before her son was killed, Michelle Hill told a Mercer sheriff's deputy that Gillespie was harassing her son. The Hills say Gillespie watched their son with binoculars and recorded him with a video camera.
"During the years prior to the homicide, which is the subject of this complaint, Defendant Gillespie had taken a particular interest in Timmy's behavior," the lawsuit states.
The 1 a.m. confrontation that led to Hill's shooting concerned some wet underwear that two other boys had thrown on Gillespie's police cruiser as a prank after they went swimming.
Angela Gillespie woke her husband up at about 11:30 p.m. and said she discovered the underwear on his police cruiser and had seen a group of boys in their driveway. She then got in her vehicle and went searching for the boys, according to the lawsuit. After she returned, Gillespie went out searching in his personal vehicle, the complaint states. Gillespie didn't find anyone, the lawsuit says, but then went out a second time, this time in his police cruiser.
"He decided that this underwear prank was important enough to warrant an official police response," the lawsuit says. "He proceeded to put his uniform on, made a call into his unit to place himself on duty at approximately 11:51 p.m., and was thereafter intentionally, and with the sanction of his unit, acting within the scope of his employment."
More than an hour after getting in his cruiser, at 1:30 a.m., Gillespie stopped Hill and two other boys walking up Hill's driveway.
Upon exiting his vehicle, "Gillespie negligently, and perhaps intentionally, failed to engage his in-car recorder," the lawsuit states.
Gillespie questioned the three friends. All of them denied taking part in the underwear prank. While the two others had been involved and lied because they were afraid they would get in trouble, Hill had not been involved and was telling the truth, according to the lawsuit.
Gillespie wrote down the boys' names and took their picture. Gillespie sent the other two boys away and continued to question Hill.
Then, "for unconfirmed reasons" and "without probable cause," the lawsuit states, Gillespie told Hill to turn around so he could place him in handcuffs.
The complaint says that Hill, who had bipolar disorder, had a medical condition that prevented him from standing still when he was nervous and another condition that caused involuntary eye movement.
According to an interview of Gillespie, conducted by State Police investigators, Gillespie said that Hill was acting strange.
"He just started looking around and like he was trying to look for a place to go and kept looking at me and looking me up and down. I wasn't sure why, and I told him, I said 'Well, go ahead and turn around and I'm going to handcuff you,'" Gillespie told investigators.
When Gillespie grabbed Hill's arm, Hill jerked away, cursed at him and went to "jolt off," according to the investigation. Gillespie put his arm around Hill's neck and told him to stop resisting, he told investigators.
The two fell to the ground, with Hill still struggling, Gillespie said.
Then the trooper sprayed Hill in the face with a large amount of pepper spray from a distance of about six inches, Gillespie told investigators. It didn't have any affect on Hill, the trooper said.
"For unconfirmed reasons, Defendant Gillespie negligently and/or intentionally decided to use excessive force against an unarmed and non-aggressive teenage boy whom he summoned off of his driveway so Defendant Gillespie could interrogate him," the lawsuit states.
Clark Crews, a neighbor who was sitting on his porch, ran over and asked Gillespie if he needed help. Crews said he immediately felt the effects of the pepper spray.
Crews pulled at Hill's arm and all three men fell down a hill into a drainage ditch.
Crews thought the struggle was over and began to climb out of the ditch, the lawsuit states. Gillespie told investigators that Hill landed on top of him, but that he was able to get out from underneath Hill and push him away.
Gillespie said that after he stood up, Hill, still on his knees, began pulling on the top of the trooper's gun holster. Gillespie told investigators that he was exhausted from the struggle and warned Hill, "get off my gun, get off my gun."
The lawsuit states that Gillespie could have used the light on his gun to create a distraction.
"This 6'3" State Trooper instead decided that his only alternative was to shoot the teenager, who was seven inches shorter and 55 pounds lighter than the law enforcement officer," the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit also alleges that Gillespie didn't attempt to provide any medical treatment to Hill after shooting him.
"In fact, he did not even check the body to see if Timmy may have still been alive," the complaint states. "Instead, he left Timmy face down underwater, which is the position Timmy's body was in when the paramedics found him."
After the shooting, Gillespie returned to his cruiser and obtained another firearm. According to the lawsuit, Gillespie told other officers he was concerned there would be an altercation when Hill's family arrived at the scene of the shooting.
"Defendant Gillespie knew that he had just killed Timothy Hill," the lawsuit says, "a teenager, right outside of his house."
Reach Kate White at kate.white@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @KateLWhite on Twitter.
Reach David Gutman at david.gutman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.