Angel Decarlo's family seeks $25 million, plus costs, in Hopewell wrongful-death lawsuit

HOPEWELL – As expected, the mother of a Hopewell woman killed by a city police officer almost five years ago has refiled a $25 million wrongful death lawsuit against the officer who pulled the trigger.

In court papers filed Monday, De. Emily Grant Decarlo is also asking for $350,000 in punitive damages, plus court costs and attorney’s fees, and “further other relief as the Court may deem just, proper, and appropriate.” Emily Decarlo is also demanding a jury trial in the case.

The suit comes on the heels of a Hopewell grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer following a lengthy investigation into Angel Viola Decarlo's case.

Angel Decarlo was shot to death Dec. 18, 2018, at the intersection of Elm and Westover streets in a residential area behind the Cavalier Square shopping center. She died at the scene.

Police said she was a suspect in the armed robbery of a Winston Churchill Drive convenience store just minutes before she died.

The lawsuit names Cameron List as the officer who killed Decarlo. He is being sued both individually and in his official capacity.

The 18-page lawsuit, filed in Hopewell Circuit Court by family attorney Brian Telfair, accuses List of three counts of unlawful search and seizure including excessive force and denial of proper medical care; and one count each of false imprisonment, battery and gross negligence.

The shooting set off an investigation of more than four years that brittled the nerves of family members and some within the law-enforcement community because of its excessive length. A special prosecutor, Portsmouth commonwealth’s attorney Stephanie Morales, claimed the delays were due to requests for more investigation into the shooting and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Morales finally presented evidence Oct. 10 to a Hopewell grand jury, who refused to indict List. The prosecution never released the charge for which it was seeking indictment, but Emily Decarlo said in a Facebook post early Monday morning that it was voluntary manslaughter.

What is in the suit?

The lawsuit provides the most extensive details of the events that led to Angel Decarlo’s shooting and refutes some earlier claims made in the police investigation.

The initial police report said Decarlo had fled from a car and pointed a handgun at List that made him fear for his life. It also said body-camera footage from the scene showed Decarlo turned and pointed the gun.

The lawsuit claims Decarlo was in fact walking on Westover Street carrying a purse and a gun toward Elm Street, and was in the midst of a psychological episode when List and another detective rolled up on her in an unmarked police car, got out and began following her on foot, ordering her repeatedly to stop. When she did not, the suit claimed List shot her in the chest.

The whole incident took about 15 seconds, according to the suit.

It alleges that List was at police headquarters when the robbery call came in and went with a more senior detective to check out the scene. En route, they heard that officers were tracking the suspect, identified as Decarlo.

“During this time, the Defendant unilaterally decided that he would try 'to get close enough to Ms. DeCarlo to tackle her,’” the suit read. “He did not discuss this idea with anyone – not the more senior detective he was working with – and not any of his superiors.

That decision, according to the lawsuit, violates Hopewell Police’s general training plan and general orders, “and principles of common sense.”

“This 'plan' to take Ms. DeCarlo down was reckless, wanton and showed a conscious disregard for Ms. DeCarlo’s life,” the suit stated.

Not the first encounter with her

The suit claims that the encounter was the second between the police and Decarlo that morning.

Around 2 a.m. on Dec. 18, 2018, it said, Decarlo was stopped by traffic patrol at an unnamed location. The officer who stopped her said he noticed she was “sweating profusely” and was “a known drug user,” but a search of her vehicle turned up no weapons.

Decarlo was let go, but the suit said the officer “threatened” to issue a warrant against her later.

About nine hours later, Decarlo lay dead in the middle of Elm Street with a bullet wound in her chest. The suit claimed after she was shot, the officer did not attempt any sort of emergency medical attention or call for medical assistance, and “might have even kicked Ms. DeCarlo as she lay bleeding in the street.”

At the request of Hopewell Police, the Virginia State Police took over the investigation. VSP turned over its findings to Hopewell commonwealth's attorney Rick Newman, who subsequently recused himself and asked for the special prosecutor.

‘Another in a long line’ of cover-ups

The lawsuit called Decarlo’s death “just another in a long line of police shootings across our country where Africans Americans are left searching for justice as investigating officers protect their own, e.g., the Blue Wall, instead of fully and fairly investigating 'fellow’ officers.” Quoting data from a 2020 article in The Washington Post, it cited an “epidemic” of police shooting people of color nationally, stating that while Black people make up around 13% of the U.S. population, almost 23% of people killed by police officers since 2016 were African American.

According to data cited by the suit from the online police department tracker policescorecard.org, Hopewell has had three officer-involved killings. The suit claimed List was involved in two of those three killings, Decarlo’s and one in 2016.

In the other one, as reported by The Progress-Index six years ago, List shot and killed a knife-wielding suspect who charged him at the Twin Rivers apartment complex on Winston Churchill Drive in 2016 as he was investigating a disturbance. According to the article, List received the Medal of Valor, the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police’s highest award, for his actions.

“The Defendant received an award for his first killing,” the lawsuit stated.

The police department and the city have not commented on the lawsuit. However, in an earlier report by The Progress-Index, police chief Greg Taylor called the grand jury’s decision not to indict “an important milestone” in the case and said it now was time to shift “toward healing.”

At the time of Decarlo’s shooting, Taylor – an almost four-decade veteran of the police department – was in his first stint as interim chief in Hopewell. Taylor retired soon after but was brought back on an interim basis earlier this year. He got the job permanently in September.

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Mother of shooting victim files lawsuit against Hopewell officer