Durham paid $2.25M to family of woman killed in police chase that city still defends

Recently obtained court documents reveal that the city of Durham paid $2.25 million to the family of a 24-year-old mother who died after a man being chased by city police T-boned her car.

City officials, however, still stand behind the controversial August 2018 police pursuit, a city attorney says. During the chase, a driver in a stolen car drove the wrong way around the downtown loop, sped through multiple neighborhoods, ran 14 red lights and cruised through seven stop signs before striking and killing Brooke Lyn Maynard.

“Police officers involved in the pursuit did their jobs to protect the public from a gun-wielding carjacker,” John Roseboro, senior assistant city attorney, wrote in an email to The News & Observer this week.

Maynard, a sheriff’s deputy who worked at the Durham County Detention Facility, died after that driver struck her car at an intersection near the former Northgate Mall. In June 2020 her family filed a lawsuit contending Maynard died due to the police department’s reckless disregard for others’ safety.

“The only thing they were concerned about was catching this carjacker at any cost, and that cost was Brooke Maynard’s life,” said attorney Donald Strickland, who represented the family with Duke University law professor Donald Beskind.

The settlement should send a message to the city and other jurisdictions about the dangers of police chases and the importance of evaluating risks, the attorneys said.

Roseboro, the city attorney, sees it differently. As the settlement agreement states, he said, the payment wasn’t an admission of fault, but a payment to avoid the “inconvenience, burden and expense of continued litigation.”

Tomaris Parker, the man who led police on the chase, “is legally and morally responsible” for Maynard’s death, not the police, he wrote in the email. Parker pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2019 and is expected to be released from state prison in 2041.

The terms of the settlement, which the city agreed to in August 2023, marks by far the highest police-related claim that the city had agreed to pay since at least 2012, according to public information requests.

The settlement was initially sealed at the family’s request, the family’s attorneys said. It was unsealed following public records requests, including one from The News & Observer, attorneys involved said. NC Lawyers Weekly first reported on the settlement.

Stolen car leads to crash

On the morning of Aug. 2, 2018, a woman who had been smoking crack at a friend’s house agreed to drive Parker to get more drugs in her mother’s 2007 charcoal gray Honda Accord, according to the family’s lawsuit.

On the way, Parker told her to get out, pointed a gun at her and cocked it. She reported the car stolen about five hours later, according to court documents.

At 7:30 p.m. Officer T. Feren spotted the stolen Honda on Elizabeth Street and instructed Officer R. Gurley, who was in training, to follow it, according to a lawsuit.

When Feren activated the police lights and siren, the Honda sped away. What followed was an 11-minute chase that included a second police car carrying two officers, including another trainee.

Police Cpl. M.J Hamilton provided supervision and direction, which is police department policy.

Durham officers can chase a fleeing vehicle when they believe the person committed a violent felony and poses an immediate threat of serious injury if not apprehended immediately, according to the department’s general orders manual.

Chases should stop when the lead officer determines that the hazard outweighs the need to arrest the person, or if police know who they are chasing and can move to apprehend a suspect at a later date.

Around 7:45 p.m. on the warm Tuesday night, Maynard was driving her Hyundai Sonata down Duke Street through a green light at the West Club Boulevard intersection, according to the lawsuit. She had children’s clothes and other items in the car that she was moving to her new home.

After Parker ran his final red light, he slammed the Honda into Maynard’s driver’s side door at 71 mph, according to the lawsuit.

Despite wearing a seatbelt, Maynard, who would have turned 30 this month, didn’t survive.

Three others were also hurt, police reported after the crash, including two others in another car and a man in Parker’s car.

Was it ‘gross negligence?’

The city agreed to a cash settlement with Maynard’s family after Durham Superior Court Judge Michael O’Foghludha denied the city’s motion to dismiss the wrongful death lawsuit in August 2022.

The order would have allowed the case to go to trial, if it survived an appeal by the city. That was a big if, attorneys on both sides said.

The Court of Appeals has rejected arguments contending police chases meet the standard of “gross negligence,” which requires proof of a reckless disregard for the safety of others.

No standing opinion from North Carolina higher courts has found a police chase to be grossly negligent, Roseboro said.

O’Foghludha’s judgment pointed out the appeals court track record on that topic, but it also noted various questions in the Durham case that he thought a jury should consider.

Some included whether it was reckless for the police chase to unfold in central Durham, North Carolina’s fourth largest city.

According to the plaintiffs’ evidence, the high-speed pursuit unfolded on major streets, through downtown, even driving the wrong way around the Ramseur Street loop, along North Carolina Central and Duke University campuses, by two shopping centers and through four neighborhoods before a foreseeable crash, the judge noted.

Maynard’s family initially sought $7 million from the city, Strickland said. After the judge’s ruling, the city appealed, a process that includes mediation.

When the city offered a sizable settlement, Strickland said the attorneys didn’t want to risk Maynard’s daughter losing out on a settlement that could make a real difference in her life.

“We couldn’t take the chance,” he said.

Virginia Bridges covers criminal justice in the Triangle for The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun. She has worked for newspapers for more than 15 years. The N.C. State Bar Association awarded her the Media & Law Award for Best Series in 2018 and 2020.

In the Spotlight designates ongoing topics of high interest that are driven by The News & Observer’s focus on accountability reporting.