Estate of man killed by Bozeman police sues department, officers
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The estate of a man killed by police in Bozeman last year, who was in the midst of a mental health crisis, sued the Bozeman Police Department and eight officers this week alleging they violated the man’s constitutional rights and wrongfully caused his death.
The federal lawsuit was filed Tuesday on behalf of the estate of Michael Rogel, the 39-year-old man shot and killed by police in April 2023, by Bozeman attorneys Hillary Carls and Timothy Bechtold.
It claims the department and officers were not properly trained and failed to try to de-escalate the situation with Rogel by not calling in mental health professionals and by shooting him with bean bag rounds and then bullets. The suit also claims the department and officers violated Rogel’s rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution and violated the Montana Constitution’s equal protection clause.
According to the lawsuit and prior news reports about the shooting and subsequent investigation – a coroner’s inquest jury found the shooting to be justified, KBZK and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported – what started with Rogel and his mother both calling 911 to report Rogel was in the middle of a mental health crisis ended with both he and his dog being shot and killed by five BPD officers on April 3, 2023.
Both the suit and testimony from the coroner’s inquest said Rogel believed people were chasing him and trying to kill him when he called 911 that day. KBZK reported Rogel’s mother had told police her son was supposed to be taking antipsychotics. The lawsuit says officers and dispatch did not connect him with mental health services or keep him on the phone.
When officers started organizing to respond to his home, according to the suit, a member of the police department’s Special Response Team, which has access to a Bearcat armored truck and is typically utilized in standoffs with people in possession of weapons, offered to help, but an officer at the scene declined the assistance.
Rogel left home in his vehicle along with his Bernese Mountain Dog before officers arrived at his house, according to the suit, and officers chased him to a cul-de-sac on Greenmore Court, where the vehicle got stuck in a snowbank. The lawsuit and a report from the police department said officers surrounded the vehicle with guns drawn.
“BPD fueled Mr. Rogel’s emergency, becoming the people with guns that Mr. Rogel feared were chasing him. BPD made Mr. Rogel’s fears a reality,” the lawsuit says.
A spokesperson for the City of Bozeman said Thursday the city was aware of the lawsuit but does not comment on pending litigation.
Rogel had a shotgun in the vehicle at the time, according to both the lawsuit and prior information released by the police department. According to KBZK, a news release from the police department released a week after the shooting said officers saw Rogel “manipulating and moving” the shotgun and that he pointed it in their direction before officers fired upon him.
The lawsuit, however, says that while Rogel had a shotgun in the vehicle, it was not loaded, he did not have any ammunition for it, and he did not know how to use it.
“Mr. Rogel could not be a physical threat to anyone because of the medical emergency that he was experiencing. Mr. Rogel was incapable of threatening trained and armed law enforcement officers, especially when six officers had weapons pointed at him,” the suit says. “It is unreasonable to conclude that Mr. Rogel threatened anyone or was a threat to anyone.”
The lawsuit claims the four officers who initially surrounded the vehicle put themselves in a situation where they did not have proper cover by declining to order the Bearcat at first and threatened to shoot Rogel if he didn’t follow their orders. It says that Rogel was not in a mental state in which he could respond “logically and calmly” and accuses officers of losing patience and failing to properly communicate with Rogel to de-escalate the situation.
It says one officer fired bean bag rounds at Rogel and his dog, and after that called in the Special Response Team and Bearcat, which the suit says should have been called in sooner because “it could have been a tool to ensure officer safety for the entire interaction while they waited for Mr. Rogel to calm down or were able to get the proper professionals in place to help Mr. Rogel navigate this mental health emergency.”
KBZK reported that body camera footage shown to the inquest jury showed officers asking Rogel to keep his hands up and off the shotgun for about 30 minutes before they shot him.
The suit says that the officer driving the Bearcat did not activate the dashboard camera on the vehicle nor his body camera, and that as it arrived, five officers opened fire on Rogel, including one the suit claims reloaded their weapon before firing more rounds.
The lawsuit claims officers fired 28 bullets total from handguns and rifles, as well as several bean bag rounds, at Rogel and his dog, both of whom were killed in the shooting. It calls the fatal shooting one that was “based on a perceived threat of (the officers’) own making.”
“Mr. Rogel called BPD to save his life. It is tragic that this call for help resulted in Mr. Rogel’s exact fear—his death,” the lawsuit says.
The lawyers are asking for a jury trial in the case and are claiming multiple constitutional violations by both the department and the officers.
The lawsuit says the officers and department each violated amendments to the U.S. Constitution protecting against unreasonable seizure, excessive force, and against deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process or equal protection under the law.
The suit also claims the police department was deliberately indifferent by failing to “adequately hire, supervise, train, or discipline its law enforcement officers.” It says the department has unwritten patterns and practices of failing to properly train officers on use of force, investigating such incidents, and fail to adequately train officers on how to respond to mental health emergencies.
“The policies, customs, and practices implicitly or explicitly adopted by the BPD amounted to deliberate indifference to and conscious disregard of Mr. Rogel’s constitutional rights and ratified the violation of his rights,” the suit says. “…BPD’s breach resulted in Mr. Rogel’s death.”
The suit claims all the defendants in the case also violated the Montana Constitution’s equal protection clause by not properly responding to a mental health crisis and failing to intervene and makes claims of assault and battery against the officers and emotional distress the shooting caused to Rogel and his family.
The attorneys for Rogel’s estate are asking a judge to grant compensatory damages from the department and officers, punitive damages against the officers, injunctive relief, incurred costs and interest, as well as attorneys’ fees in the case.
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