By David Rasbach
The Bellingham Herald (Bellingham, Wash.)
WHATCOM, Wash. — The two Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office deputies who were shot in the face while responding to a call in the Peaceful Valley neighborhood are bringing a civil lawsuit against the man who is charged with shooting them.
The two deputies, Jason Thompson and Ryan Rathbun, and their attorney Daniel Horne of Campiche Andrews Horne PLLC announced the civil lawsuit against Joel Berck Young in a press conference Friday, March 4, in Seattle. Afterward, they spoke with The Bellingham Herald.
“We have filed a suit against Joel Young for assault and battery of officer(s) Thompson and Rathbun in the line of duty when what they were trying to do was deescalate the situation,” Horne told The Herald via Zoom.
[EARLIER: 2 Wash. state deputies shot while breaking up neighborhood dispute]
Horne said the civil case already has been filed in Whatcom County Superior Court.
Young, 60, has already been criminally charged with two counts of attempted premeditated first-degree murder, one count of first-degree assault while armed with a firearm, one count of second-degree assault while armed with a firearm, one count of felony harassment, and six counts of reckless endangerment in Whatcom County Superior Court. Young pleaded not guilty to those charges on Feb. 18 and his jury trial was tentatively scheduled for April.
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Young is currently being held in the Skagit County Community Justice Center in lieu of $5 million bail.
“We’re in the process of investigating civil damages,” Horne said. “Getting them full compensation and holding Joel Young accountable for these acts. When the deputies describe in detail what occurred to them, I don’t think there is any question that they did exactly what they were trained to do, they followed their training, they followed their human instincts and Mr. Young was unreasonable and uncooperative and decided he was just not going to respect the authority and peacefulness of both the deputies in trying to communicate.”
The suit is a civil damages cause of action for past and future medical costs, pain and suffering, loss of income and “the entire spectrum of civil damages” seen in civil cases, Horne said.
“We’re going to investigate any source of money or compensation that we can obtain from Joel Young,” Horne said.
Though many law firms chose to wait to file civil suits, Horne said his office prefers to file early to obtain as much discovery as possible “while memories are fresh and documents are still where they’re supposed to be.”
“Lawsuits do not get better over time,” he said, adding that there is typically no advantage to wait until criminal proceedings have concluded.
Horne said the deputies will be each be claiming more than $100,000 in damages, meaning the case will not be subject to mandatory arbitration, adding that each deputy likely already has incurred “tens of thousands of dollars” in hospital costs in the past three weeks since the Feb. 10 incident. So far the Department of Labor and Industry has covered those costs, Horne said, but will place a lien on the lawsuit to recoup those costs.
Thompson researched and sought out his firm to see if there was anything he and Rathbun could do civilly, Horne said, in a time when many law enforcement officials are facing civil lawsuits police-involved shootings.
“If you look at what these officers have been through and why they did it, it’s the clearest illustration that, despite the uniform that some people would focus on, there are human beings wearing those uniforms, and they have wives, and they have families, and they have futures, and they have dreams, and they have the desire to keep working and serving the community,” Horne said. “To ignore their civil action rights is no better than to ignore the civil rights of others.
“Officers have rights. They have rights like every other citizen does. And we want Mr. Young and we want the public to understand that we protect those rights. They were intentionally harmed, and Joel Young deserves to be held accountable. He’s not special. He’s not an exception to the rule.”
Horne’s firm has previously represented officers who have been shot in the line of duty, he said, as well has people who have been wrongfully shot by police, such as the Tommy Le case from 2017 in Seattle when an unarmed high school student was shot by a sheriff’s deputy in King County. Le’s family ultimately received a $5 million settlement from the King County Sheriff’s Office in that case.
“What we want to be clear about is we hold wrongdoers responsible,” Horne said.
The shooting
Sheriff’s deputies were sent at 4:17 p.m. on Feb. 10 to the 3000 block of Green Valley Drive in Peaceful Valley for a report of shots fired, after a caller told 911 that a neighbor was outside shooting his 12-gauge shotgun in the air, according to a news release from Bellingham police at the time. Additional callers said two people were shooting at each other from two houses.
Deputies arrived around 4:40 p.m. and said that a man, later identified as Young, was yelling at them and waving a shotgun around, according to court records. Deputies established probable cause to arrest Young for felony harassment, and noted that Young appeared intoxicated due to his speech and physical actions, the court records state.
Within the next five minutes, both deputies had been shot in the head with birdshot, according to court records. Neighbors helped pull the deputies to safety and administered first aid before other first responders arrived and Thompson and Rathbun were taken to St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham.
Young surrendered shortly after 6 p.m. and was taken into custody.
(c)2022 The Bellingham Herald (Bellingham, Wash.)