Fatal shooting of Eliborio Rodrigues Jr. by Eugene police officer 'wrongful, unreasonable and unnecessary' lawsuit asserts
Family and friends knew Eliborio “Eli” Rodrigues Jr. as a good man with a “big teddy bear heart,” according to a federal lawsuit that alleges a Eugene police officer wrongfully killed him.
Rodrigues, a father a four, regularly collected bottles and cans at night to “provide extra funds to feed his family and make ends meet,” reads the legal complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court.
He was collecting cans early in the morning on Nov. 30, 2019, when he had an encounter with Eugene Police Department Officer Samuel Tykol. That encounter led to a fight, during which Tykol shot Rodrigues three times, ultimately killing him.
Lane County District Attorney Patty Perlow and a city Use of Force Review Board found Tykol’s use of deadly force was lawful and within policy. Former Police Auditor Mark Gissiner partially disagreed, saying Tykol had violated policies on de-escalation, use of force, stops and foot pursuits during the encounter. Police Chief Chris Skinner concurred with the review board’s finding.
The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Ofelia Santiago as the representative of Rodrigues’ estate, alleges the stop, attempted arrest and use of deadly force all were unreasonable under federal law and calls the shooting “wrongful, unreasonable and unnecessary.”
It also claims liability on the part of Tykol’s supervisors, alleges the city’s policy “allows officers to shoot suspects when there is no threat of deadly force, open fire without warning and without an awareness of the totality of circumstances which would not justify such use of force” and makes state claims of wrongful death and negligence.
The lawsuit names Tykol, three of his supervisors listed as John Does, and the city as defendants.
Eugene and the police department are unable to comment about the lawsuit at this time, EPD spokeswoman Melinda McLaughlin said.
Previous police encounter left Rodrigues 'nervous and afraid'
Rodrigues often collected cans and bottles at night with Shoua Yang, the mother of his children and his partner of 20 years, in an effort to get extra money for their family.
His late-night bike rides and walks had led to another encounter with police nearly a year before the shooting.
On Oct. 27, 2018, Rodrigues was collecting cans near the University of Oregon when former university police officer Troy Phillips stopped him on his bike.
The university, which settled a lawsuit with Rodrigues’ estate for $115,000, fired and has since sued Phillips, claiming he stopped Rodrigues even though he had "no reasonable suspicion" he had committed or was committing a crime.
That encounter also escalated, and Phillips threatened to use a Taser on Rodrigues and told a cover officer to “go lethal,” according to that lawsuit filed in April.
Phillips committed perjury, hid video evidence and took other actions that resulted in his firing, the lawsuit from Santiago and the estate reads.
It also left Rodrigues feeling “nervous and afraid of officers,” the complaint says.
Complaint: Officer 'fairly aggressive' from start of encounter
Around 12:30 a.m. on Nov. 30, 2019 — more than a year after the encounter with Phillips — Rodrigues was walking along Acacia Avenue looking for recyclable bottles and cans that people might have put out in open-topped blue bins for collection.
He was carrying a white bag with the bottles and cans he had collected when Tykol pulled up in his patrol car, the lawsuit says, allegedly to question him because he “was walking in the street, failed to use the sidewalk and was wearing a dark hoodie and mask while carrying a white plastic bag.”
There’s body-worn camera footage of part of the encounter, and the complaint says it shows Tykol being “fairly aggressive from the moment he approaches Mr. Rodrigues.”
The reason Tykol gave for stopping him — walking on the road and ignoring the sidewalk — is “at best … a minor infraction which does not permit extended stops or arrests,” the lawsuit reads.
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Tykol asked for identification, but the lawsuit alleges he didn’t have a legal basis to do that because Rodrigues hadn’t been driving.
Rodrigues questioned Tykol, who “casually” said he can stop him “whenever I want,” the complaint reads, but Rodrigues had “the right to walk away or refuse to answer questions.”
The lawsuit says Tykol got “more aggressive” and “angrier” and grabbed Rodrigues, telling him he wasn’t free to leave, prompting Rodrigues to ask to speak with a sergeant.
As the encounter continued, Rodrigues kept asking to speak to a sergeant and repeatedly called Tykol “sir,” the lawsuit says. He sounds “worried and afraid” throughout the recording, the complaint adds.
Though Rodrigues was “unarmed and makes no threatening statements or gestures,” the lawsuit says, Tykol continued to escalate “without cause or reason.”
There was a struggle, at which point the lawsuit says the camera “magically stops recording,” meaning Rodrigues, who’s now dead, is the “only person who can contradict the police version after the camera is disabled.”
Tykol has said there was a physical dispute, leading to him spraying Rodrigues with tear gas then chasing and fighting him, with Rodrigues getting on top of him at some point and using his own Taser on him, the complaint reads.
Tykol also has claimed he and Rodrigues continued to fight until he was “eventually able to grab his sidearm and fire three times into Rodrigues until he ‘stopped fighting,’ ” the lawsuit says.
DA: Tykol thought Rodrigues was going to kill him
After a review by the county’s Interagency Deadly Force Investigation Team, Perlow found Tykol’s use of deadly force was lawful.
In a memo announcing and explaining her decision, Perlow said the area around Acacia Avenue was Tykol’s regular patrol area and he “knew there had been a number of crimes reported in the area including breaking into vehicles and burglaries.”
She also notes Rodrigues fought and yelled and that the physical fight knocked off the body-worn camera, which shut off when it hit the pavement.
Tykol said at some point Rodrigues stopped trying to get away and he could tell the other man was “out to get him,” Perlow wrote, and he thought Rodrigues was going to kill him.
Contacting Rodrigues was “good police work,” Perlow said, though she added she hopes law enforcement agencies would review policies to “make sure they are designed to promote the safety of our officers and citizens when an officer is alone and a citizen who has committed a pedestrian violation, but no observed crime, becomes uncooperative.”
Perlow also urged citizens to recognize it’s “never safe to fight with law enforcement” and that court is the place to raise the issue of a stop being unlawful.
Lawsuit: Officer had 'numerous points' to make different choices
A few months after Perlow made her ruling, a Use of Force Board convened to review Tykol’s actions in the context of department policy.
That review board found the use of deadly force and his actions up to that point were within department policy.
But the Citizen Review Board, which also reviews uses of deadly force for EPD, found some parts of the investigation “troubling,” the lawsuit says. The police auditor also expressed concerns, finding that while Tykol’s use of deadly force was within policy, he violated other department policies leading up to the moment he fired three shot into Rodrigues’ abdomen.
Gissiner, who was auditor at the time but has since retired, told the CRB “he had never seen ‘such a poor investigation concerning an officer-involved shooting,’ ” and that “the incident happened because of the poor training of Tykol by EPD,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit concurs with Gissiner on at least one point, saying Tykol failed to follow policy by:
Not calling for alternative officers of supervisors
Engaging in a foot chase with a jaywalker while alone
Assaulting a man who was not physically resistant
Providing an unreliable story about the events
There were “numerous points” when Tykol could have made different choices, the lawsuit states.
“It is believed that the officer did everything wrong in approaching this situation creating his own exigency when none existed,” the complaint reads. “This officer panicked and simply started shooting.”
The lawsuit lays some of the blame on the city, alleging EPD fails to properly train officers in de-escalation, modification to tactical response, proper use of deadly force, citizen rights and other things related to responding to a crisis situation.
On behalf of Rodrigues’ estate, Santiago is asking for damages, including for discipline and deterrence, and attorney fees, with the amounts all to be determined at trial.
Contact city government watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com. Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1.
Read the lawsuit, city documents
The lawsuit is available at scribd.com/document/543564270/Santiago-v-Tykol-Et-Al and is embedded below.
Police documents related to the case are available at scribd.com/document/543583723/EPD-documents.
This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Lawsuit filed over fatal police shooting of Eliborio Rodrigues Jr.
