$35 million sought in police shooting case

A Moose Lake man shot by a Carlton County deputy last summer is suing the deputy, the county and other participating agencies for $35 million, claiming that the deputy used unnecessary force by shooting him twice, that the deputy was poorly trained, and that he had been drinking prior to the incident.

Shawn Michael Olthoff, 35, was paralyzed from the chest down after being shot twice by Carlton County deputy Sgt. Jason Warnygora during a Consolidated Emergency Response Team (CERT) operation on July 29, 2019. Olthoff is suing for $25 million in compensatory damages — as his paralysis is irreversible — and $10 million in punitive damages.

Warnygora was placed on administrative leave after the shooting, while the BCA investigated the case and then the Carlton County Attorney’s Office considered whether or not any criminal charges should be filed against the deputy, a 15-year veteran of the department. On Oct. 29, three months after the shooting, the Carlton County Attorney’s office released its ruling that the use of deadly force by Sgt. Warnygora in the process of executing a warrant for the arrest of Shawn Olthoff was “necessary, justified and authorized by law.” County Attorney Lauri Ketola said she had the matter independently reviewed by retired St. Louis County prosecutor Vern Swanum.

Warnygora was part of the team that entered the trailer, owned by Olthoff’s mother, after she told them Olthoff was sleeping on a couch inside. Similar to a SWAT team, the CERT team is made up of officers from all law enforcement agencies in the county.

The CERT team had been assembled to arrest Olthoff, who was accused of pointing a gun at another deputy two days before, when the officer pulled over the vehicle in which Olthoff was a passenger. Deputy Jokinen said Olthoff got out of the car and pointed what he believed was a firearm at the car, which led to Jokinen taking evasive action with his car and leaving the scene. Olthoff then fled the scene on foot.

A search afterward uncovered Olthoff’s cell phone and a holster with six rounds of pistol ammunition, but no gun. Over the next two days, law enforcement kept searching for Olthoff, and a felony arrest warrant was issued. Two days later, they learned from his mother that he was sleeping on her coach at a trailer park in Moose Lake.

The plan to enter the trailer did not go exactly as laid out beforehand.

According to the county’s synopsis, the first two officers who entered the residence did not use deadly force against Mr. Olthoff, who was sleeping on the couch when a flash bang device was deployed in the doorway. The third officer, Warnygora, “acting upon a number of perceived factors,” shot Mr. Olthoff two times using his .40 caliber service pistol.

According to the complaint filed by Olthoff’s attorney, the first two officers to enter the trailer (Cloquet’s Nathan Cook and Darrin Berg) said they saw Olthoff raise his hands after being commanded to do so by Cook, who was pointing a rifle at him. Both officers told the BCA they did not see a gun when they were interviewed. The complaint quotes both officers from the BCA interview.

Warnygora said he believed Olthoff had a gun and saw him with one hand hanging off the couch and the other (with possibly a gun) moving in the direction of the officers.

Olthoff is represented by Minneapolis attorney Robert Bennett, who has won or successfully negotiated a number of high-profile civil cases, including a $2.99 million settlement in the police shooting of Philando Castile and a $20 million settlement in the wrongful death case of Justine Ruszczyk by Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor.

Bennett compared the case to the Mohamed Noor case, in which a Minneapolis police officer shot and killed a woman who had called the police to report what she thought might be a sexual assault happening behind her home in south Minneapolis. In that case, the two officers were startled by the caller, Justine Ruszczyk, coming up to their squad car in the alley. Both drew weapons but only Noor shot.

“My view of this is that this is more serious than Noor,” Bennett said in a phone interview with the Pine Knot News this week. “Obviously it’s not an easy story to understand but what it boils down to is the two Cloquet officers told the truth and their stories match with Olthoff’s. The deputy told a different story.”

“But the real story is that the Cloquet officers told the truth and didn’t form the blue line of silence. They’re to be credited. I haven’t seen much of that in my 44-plus years of practice,” he added.

Both the case synopsis by Carlton County and the lawsuit state that no gun was ever found and Olthoff was unarmed. The county’s synopsis goes into detail regarding Olthoff’s extensive criminal record — including felony third-degree burglary, theft, assault on a federal law enforcement officer, felony escape and third-degree assault charges — and what Warnygora said he thought he saw: a handgun pointing at his fellow officers. The synopsis reflects only Warnygora’s viewpoint and doesn’t mention the other officers' testimony.

Ketola said that was proper.

“Our analysis was properly conducted from the perspective of Sgt. Warnygora,” she told the Pine Knot. “We concluded that it was objectively reasonable for Sgt. Warnygora to mistakenly believe Mr. Olthoff posed an immediate threat of great bodily harm or death to officers at the time Sgt. Warnygora fired his service weapon and, therefore, Sgt. Warnygora was legally justified in using deadly force.

“You can’t defend a lawsuit blaming the victim and an imaginary gun,” Bennett said.

Another point of the lawsuit is Warnygora’s statement that he had consumed alcohol.

Hours after the shooting, the deputy told a BCA official he drank two beers earlier in the day, before responding to the CERT call. A subsequent blood alcohol test came back negative.

The county has hired attorney Joe Flynn to represent them in the lawsuit. Flynn said Warnygora volunteered the information that he’d consumed two beers with lunch, several hours before the shooting.

“There is no reason to believe there was any alcohol in his system at the time of the shooting and, further, there is zero evidence that alcohol consumption played any role whatsoever in this shooting,” Flynn wrote to the Pine Knot. “With regard to the timing of any alcohol testing, the timing was determined by the BCA,” he added, referring to the fact that the BCA did not test Warnygora as soon as possible after the shooting, instead doing it several hours later and only after Warnygora told them he’d had drinks earlier in the day.

The lawsuit asks for damages from Warnygora personally, for violating Olthoff’s Fourth and 14th Amendment rights to be free from the unauthorized and improper use of deadly force. Additionally, it asked for damages from Carlton County, for failure to properly train Warnygora, as well as participating CERT agencies (the county and cities of Cloquet and Moose Lake) for failure to train CERT members properly and holding them responsible for the actions of the CERT team.

“I’m not claiming my client is a schoolboy, but the Fourth [Amendment] either exists for the least of us or none of us,” Bennett said.

Bennett said the defendants in the lawsuit have until May 11 to respond to the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court Friday. The lawsuit demands a jury trial.