(Editor’s note: This story includes graphic descriptions of a traffic stop and a photo showing blood on the road. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion, linked in the article below, includes several additional graphic photos that should be viewed with caution.)
While a Wagoner County initiative petition failed to gather enough signatures to convene a grand jury to investigate the death of Jeffrey Krueger, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that deputy sheriffs and police officers are not entitled to qualified immunity for a civil rights violation claim brought by his estate.
Krueger was killed during a traffic stop near Wagoner in 2019, a year before conversations about police brutality resulted in broad protests across America.
Six years later, the Aug. 22 ruling did not find the Wagoner County officers liable for what happened to Krueger, but it affirmed a district court decision. As a result, the high-profile civil lawsuit can continue toward a jury trial unless a settlement is reached beforehand.
“Because the force the jury could find the deputies used was clearly established as excessive by our precedents, (Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office) Deputies (Kaleb) Phillips and (Nicholas) Orr are not entitled to qualified immunity,” Judge Carolyn McHugh wrote for the three-judge panel. “The district court correctly concluded that the officers who participated in the prolonged prone restraint — Deputy (Matthew) Lott, Lt. (Elizabeth) Crockett, Officer (Drew) Craig, and Officer (Tyler) McFarland — are likewise not entitled to qualified immunity on the excessive force claim.”
While U.S. Code 42, Section 1983 specifically authorizes federal civil rights lawsuits against county and city police who violate a citizen’s rights, the doctrine of qualified immunity requires the violation to have been “clearly established” before officers can be held liable. The purpose of the doctrine is to provide clear notice to officers that certain actions are a violation of citizens’ rights before they are made liable.
Filed by his heirs in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, Krueger’s case argues officers were not entitled to qualified immunity when they “pulled him out of his car by his hair, slammed his head on the ground, and continued to punch and tase him in stun mode after the point they became aware he was subdued.” The 10th Circuit agreed, finding that the Wagoner County deputies who initiated the stop were potentially liable for violating Krueger’s rights.
The Wagoner Police Department officers who responded afterward are also not entitled to qualified immunity for the use of a prone restraint on Krueger for at least four minutes. Other officers who responded to the scene are not entitled to qualified immunity for their failure to intervene and prevent their colleagues’ use of excessive force.
The ruling sees the case survive summary judgement and brings it one step closer to a potential jury trial or settlement. When courts are considering a party’s request for summary judgement, they are required to consider whether any facts are in dispute. If facts are not disputed, a judge must determine that application of the law clearly settles a case while looking at the facts in a light most favorable to the plaintiff.
Krueger’s became one of the deaths cited in a Wagoner County grand jury petition filed earlier this year. The petition — which sought criminal charges and the removal of Wagoner County Sheriff Chris Elliott and District Attorney Jack Thorp from office — failed to gain enough signatures, but the Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation into the petition’s filers. Thorp, who declined to charge the officers in Krueger’s death, then asked Attorney General Gentner Drummond to handle any prosecutions related to that investigation. Drummond’s office declined to file charges.
While Wagoner County voters rejected a proposed sales tax increase for jail funding and to move its management from the sheriff to a jail trust in 2024, they approved an increase to property taxes in 2025 to cover the cost of a $13 million settlement the county must pay to the estate of Angela Liggans, a type one diabetic who died from diabetic ketoacidosis in the Wagoner County Jail after staff failed to provide her access to insulin for more than four days. Liggans’ death was also cited in the grand jury petition.
If Krueger’s relatives are ultimately successful in their lawsuit, Wagoner County and its residents could see another need for tax revenue to cover liability caused by Elliott’s employees.
‘Driving fast, failure to stay in his lane’
While appellate courts rarely write detailed factual narratives, the 10th Circuit panel found District Court Judge Ronald White’s analysis to be subpar, resulting in an 84-page decision that describes the incident in detail based on what facts the 10th Circuit deemed undisputed and reflective of why the case should go before a jury.
On July 1, 2019, Jeffrey Krueger was driving to his parents’ house in Texas when he stopped at a gas station in Wagoner to clean his windshield, according to the decision. Wagoner County Deputy Sheriff Nicholas Orr was refueling his patrol car at a gas station when Krueger arrived. Orr attributed — without evidence — the sound of tires squealing to Krueger, so he observed him at the gas station. Orr said Krueger talked to himself at the gas station, leading Orr to believe he was intoxicated.
Orr used his personal phone to call Deputy Kaleb Phillips and asked him to follow Krueger as he left town and to pull him over. Phillips observed Krueger “driving fast and failing to stay in his lane,” although he later testified he was not sure if Krueger was speeding. As Orr caught up to Phillips and Krueger in his car, Phillips initiated a traffic stop, and Krueger pulled into the reversible center lane of the highway to stop, according to the decision.
Phillips exited his vehicle and drew his gun, while Orr exited his vehicle. As they approached the vehicle, the deputies gave conflicting commands for Krueger to stay in the vehicle, exit the vehicle, put his hands on the wheel and to raise his hands. According to the decision, Krueger appeared to be searching his car for his license and registration when both officers approached his vehicle with their weapons drawn. Both officers testified they did not suspect Krueger was armed.
While both officers filed depositions with the court saying Kruger opened his car door, Orr’s initial interview provided a different account, under which Phillips opened the door. The 10th Circuit interpreted this ambiguity in Krueger’s favor and assumed for purposes of summary judgement that the officer opened the door.
While Phillips said Krueger grabbed his arm and reached for his gun after the door was open, Orr told an OSBI investigator that Phillips grabbed Krueger fist. The court also interpreted this inconsistency in Krueger’s favor and found a reasonable jury could believe Phillips grabbed Krueger first.
The appellate court went out of its way to instruct lower courts to consider inconsistencies in officers’ testimony and an officer’s trustworthiness when examining qualified immunity cases, citing Phillips’ and Orr’s “inconsistent accounts” that are contradicted by video evidence.
“Beyond these inconsistent accounts, the deputies’ credibility is also called into question by video evidence that undercuts or directly contradicts their testimony describing other parts of the encounter,” McHugh wrote for the appellate panel. “Further, both Deputy Phillips and Deputy Orr stated in sworn affidavits that Mr. Krueger called them ‘fuckers’ and ‘motherfuckers’ when they walked away from him at the end of the encounter. But in the video, Mr. Krueger is mumbling at this point in the encounter, while Deputy Phillips calls Mr. Krueger ‘fucker’ and ‘motherfucker’ just before he walks away. Indeed, while Deputy Phillips specifically testified that he did not directly call Mr. Krueger a motherfucker during the encounter, and only uttered curse words out of exhaustion, that testimony is contradicted by his own body camera video, in which he exclaims, ‘Goddamn! You motherfucker!’ while holding Mr. Krueger down.”
McHugh also noted the computer-aided dispatch, or CAD, logs from the incident show that only 15 seconds passed between Phillips calling in the incident and Orr calling in the fight. She wrote:
That means means only 15 seconds passed from when Deputy Phillips arrived on scene, and just six seconds from when Deputy Orr arrived, to when the deputies had removed Mr. Krueger from his car and begun to struggle on the ground. That brief timeline undercuts Deputy Orr’s and Deputy Phillips’s testimony that they gave multiple commands to Mr. Krueger that he ignored before they reached into the car and decided to extract him. The timeline, however, supports the estate’s account — along with Deputy Orr’s initial testimony to the OSBI — that Deputy Phillips decided to remove Mr. Krueger from the car before he had any chance to comply.
Considering the deputies’ conflicting accounts and the estate’s circumstantial evidence, a reasonable jury could find that Mr. Krueger was grabbed by Deputy Phillips as he tried to locate his driver’s license and registration and was taken to the ground before he had a chance to comply with any commands. A reasonable jury could further find that to the extent Mr. Krueger grabbed the deputies, the motion was involuntary, out of fear, or surprise as he was violently pulled from his car.
After the deputies undid Mr. Krueger’s seatbelt, they pulled him from his car by his hair. Deputies Orr and Phillips then threw Mr. Krueger to the ground and a struggle ensued. At some point during the struggle, before Deputy Phillips’s body camera footage begins, Mr. Krueger suffered a severe blow to the head, opening a gash in his forehead that covered the highway with blood. Additionally, Mr. Krueger’s hair had been grabbed with enough force to leave a bloody wad of it behind.
According to the deputies, a ground struggle ensued as they attempted to get Mr. Krueger’s hands behind his back to handcuff. The struggle lasted for at least a minute and a half before Deputy Phillips’s body camera began to capture the encounter.
After the officers’ body camera were activated, Krueger is initially seen on the ground kicking as the officers try to restrain him, according to the court. McHugh described what happened next:
Just a few seconds later, Mr. Krueger asked, “what do you want me to do?” and then repeatedly asked for help as the deputies simultaneously commanded him to turn over while holding him down, preventing him from doing so. The video shows that Mr. Krueger did not move or struggle for about 20 seconds. When Mr. Krueger began to struggle and kick again, the deputies deployed their taser for approximately eight seconds and continued to command him to turn over.
After this deployment of the taser, Mr. Krueger kicked again, weakly, as the deputies commanded him to give them his hands. For the next 45 seconds, they held down Mr. Krueger and attempted to place handcuffs on him. They repeatedly yelled for him to turn over and he repeatedly responded that he was trying. During this interval, Deputy Orr had his body on Mr. Krueger, apparently preventing him from complying with the command to turn over, while Deputy Phillips held his taser at the ready against Mr. Krueger’s thigh. Deputy Orr again commanded for Mr. Krueger to give his hands, and immediately after told Deputy Phillips to tase him. Deputy Phillips deployed the taser again for at least five seconds. When the taser was deployed this time, Mr. Krueger had been held down for almost a minute by both deputies and was no longer kicking.
Mr. Krueger reached for something on Deputy Phillips’s belt. Deputy Phillips yelled for him to let go, and then said that Mr. Krueger tried to grab his taser. After briefly standing up and repositioning, the deputies continued to hold Mr. Krueger down for about a minute and a half and tried to handcuff him. They did not deploy the taser again, but continuously held him down even as Mr. Krueger’s cries for help grew increasingly faint and unintelligible. The deputies finally managed to pull Mr. Krueger’s arm behind his back and handcuff him with the help of two EMTs who responded to the scene, as Mr. Krueger continued to lie on the ground exhausted, barely moving.
As more officers responded to the scene, one called out, “God damn! There’s a lot of blood. He’s covered in blood.” After the newly arriving officers confirmed they had control of Mr. Krueger, Deputy Phillips walked away toward a patrol car. Deputy Orr stated in his interview with investigators that during the course of the encounter, he used his taser on Mr. Krueger at least three times in drive-stun mode. Deputy Orr reported that Deputy Phillips also used a taser on Mr. Krueger two to three times in drive-stun mode. Deputy Orr also indicated he struck Mr. Krueger two to three times in the jaw. In his deposition, Deputy Orr further stated the taser was set to 50,000 volts and that he was using it for “pain compliance.” In Deputy Phillips’s deposition, he confirmed he used the taser “approximately (…) three times” in drive-stun mode for “pain compliance.” According to the estate’s excessive force expert, the taser records show one of the tasers was activated three times for 10 total seconds, while the other was activated five times for 25 total seconds, in drive-stun mode.
After Krueger was handcuffed, City of Wagoner police officers Ben Blair, Drew Craig, Tyler McFarland and Corey Nevitt arrived on the scene and took over restraining Krueger.
“Officer Craig placed his right shin and knee on Mr. Krueger’s right shoulder, while ‘Officer McFarland placed his right shin and knee on Mr. Krueger’s waistline and his left knee over Mr. Krueger’s left shoulder,'” McHugh wrote. “Officers Nevitt and Blair did not participate in restraining Mr. Krueger or taking him into custody, but testified they witnessed Mr. Krueger handcuffed and face down with other officers on top of him.”
Types of binding, opinion
The 10th Circuit’s opinion explained the legal distinction between a “hog-tie” and a “hobble-tie” in a footnote. While the more familiar hog-tie involves “binding the ankles to the wrists, behind the back, with 12 inches or less of separation,” a hobble-tie involves “a longer chain connecting the ankles to the wrists — here, somewhere between 14 and 18 inches.”
Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Elizabeth Crockett then arrived on the scene, knelt on Krueger for about a minute, and secured leg shackles to him. After Krueger was shackled, Crockett left the scene and Lott placed his foot on Krueger’s shoulder. A little while later Lott left to retrieve a “hobble chain,” and Krueger was hobble-tied.
Shortly after Krueger was hobble-tied, officers noticed he had “shallow breathing,” so EMTs loaded him into an ambulance. He was pronounced dead when he arrived at the Wagoner Community Hospital. The state’s unaccredited medical examiner’s office labeled the cause of death as “cardiac dysrhythmias due to probable acute psychosis in the setting of physical exertion and restraint.”
Krueger’s estate submitted a report from a different medical expert who found the cause of death was positional asphyxia. That expert’s opinion suggested the officers’ combined weight — about 665 pounds, according to the court — atop Krueger while he was in a prone position broke several of his ribs and asphyxiated him. The expert also noted Krueger likely panicked and struggled during the asphyxiation.
The appellate court ultimately held that a reasonable jury could find the following actions to be excessive force and “clearly established” as such in the 10th Circuit:
- Phillips’ and Orr’s “grabbing [Krueger] by the hair, pulling him from his vehicle, and slamming his head into the asphalt,” for a minor traffic violation;
- Phillips’ and Orr’s alleged “continued use of the taser once Krueger was effectively subdued,” for felony assault of an officer;
- Phillips’ and Orr’s allegedly striking Krueger after he was subdued; and
- McFarland’s, Craig’s, Crockett’s and Lott’s use of the prone restraint after Krueger was subdued.
Read the 10th Circuit decision here
