Eastern Illinois University swimmer Jaylan Butler has reached a settlement in his lawsuit against police officers who took him to the ground at gunpoint when they mistook him for a suspect they were pursuing.
BACKGROUND
- EIU swimmer taken down by police at gunpoint in 2019; ACLU files suit
- Jaylan Butler says George Floyd video ‘snapped me back to my experience’
- SwimSwam Podcast: Jaylan Butler shares how police incident affected his life
- Officers court claims contradict police reports in detainment of Jaylan Butler
- Report: 50 minutes of bodycam footage missing in Jaylan Butler detainment
On February 24, 2019, Eastern Illinois University was on a team bus returning from the Summit League Championships. When the team stopped at a rest stop near East Moline, Illinois, police mistook Butler – the only black member of the EIU swim & dive team – for a suspect they were pursuing and handcuffed him facedown in the snow. According to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, an officer had a knee in Butler’s back and another pointed a gun at Butler’s head, threatening to “blow your [expletive]ing head off.”
According to the suit, when officers realized Butler was not their suspect – local media report the suspect was eight inches taller and 70 pounds heavier than Butler – they told him they were arresting him for resisting arrest. The suit says they illegally searched Butler’s pockets and left him handcuffed in the back of a police car for several minutes, only releasing him when he could show identification.
In court filings, East Moline Police Officer Travis Staes denied claims that he and Hampton Police Officer Ethan Bush had exited their cars with guns pointed at Butler. But both had already filed police reports at the time confirming that they had pointed guns at Butler. That was one of many inconsistencies between official police reports and court claims from those same officers, based on our reporting last year. Bush’s original police report failed to mention that Butler was handcuffed facedown in the snow. He later admitted that to be the case in court filings. Meanwhile, local media reported that a 50-minute segment of police bodycam footage in the case was missing, a fact one expert called “very suspect.”
Lawsuit Settled
The original lawsuit was filed against Staes, Bush, Rock Island County Sheriff’s Deputies Jack Asquini and Jason Pena, along with two unnamed law enforcement officers.
The ACLU says Butler has settled the suit against “two of the officers who directly interacted with Jaylan on that fateful evening.” According to court records, the suit has been dropped against all defendants. Butler’s attorneys say Bush and Staes were the two officers who settled their suits.
Bush was the officer whose police bodycam footage remains missing. He said in his report that his bodycam was turned off “due to equipment, including the AR-15 sling, making contact with the on/off switch and turning the camera off.” The company that makes the bodycam Bush was wearing said the bodycam is designed with its concave on/off button in the center of the device, specifically to avoid the button being accidentally tapped on and off.
The 50-minute segment of Bush’s missing bodycam footage includes all of his interactions with Butler. Hampton Police refused to explain the missing bodycam footage, saying only that “A FOIA requires the production of documents, not explanations.”
Bush also had a string of very short employments with law enforcement agencies, making it difficult to track previous complaints against him. Bush was only employed by the Village of Hampton for nine months. Before that, he was employed for just three months at the Village of Milan in Illinois. His prior job was with the City of Rock Island. When asked for complaints filed against Bush during his three years with Rock Island, the city only provided one complaint register that named three other Rock Island Officers, but not Bush, then flatly refused to explain how the document was related to Bush.
Bush is no longer employed by the Village of Hampton. It’s unclear if he is still working in law enforcement with a different agency. We’ve reached out to the Hampton Police Department for comment on the settlement.
Staes remains employed by the East Moline Police Department as a juvenile crimes detective. Police Chief Jeff Ramsey gave SwimSwam the following statement:
“This was an unfortunate incident of mistaken identity while responding to a report of an armed suspect firing at traffic and jeopardizing public safety. We are confident Officer Staes acted appropriately given the limited information he had as his disposal and we’re grateful that no one was physically harmed in the interaction. Since the City was self-insured at the time of this incident, the decision to settle this suit and limit the accrual of ongoing legal defense costs was strictly a business decision and in no way suggests any wrongdoing on the part of Officer Staes or the East Moline Police Department.”
ACLU & Butler Comments
The ACLU called the settlement a “successful resolution.”
“We filed this case to seek accountability for Jaylan and to raise awareness of the degree to which traumatic police interactions harm individuals, even when the person harmed is able to walk away,” the ACLU says on its website. “We believe, and Jaylan concurs, that our actions to date have satisfied those goals. Now, Jaylan can put this matter behind him and continue his private life as a student, athlete, and young man. ”
Butler says his suit was about holding officers accountable, and that he remains committed to fighting for police accountability.
“The memories of that night being pressed to the ground, with officers swearing at me and a gun pointed at my head, will remain with me forever,” Butler says in a statement on the ACLU site. “But I know that unlike other Black men who have been stopped and manhandled by police, I got to go home. For me, this lawsuit has always been about holding the officers accountable for their actions that night. I believe I have accomplished that goal. As a result, I am happy to dismiss the suit and move forward.
“I want to thank all of the people from across the country who were supportive of me during this time. I value your well wishes and words of appreciation more than I can say.
“The end of this lawsuit is not the end of the fight for police accountability. We must ensure that officers are held to account when they violate someone’s constitutional rights. This is an effort that I will continue to support for the rest of my life.”
How hard can it be to just say “Sorry, we f*cked up. Our apologies to this young man for the inconvenience and we promise to work on doing better in the future” ?
Hope he got millions of dollars!!!
Great reporting from SwimSwam here. Y’all’s journalism doesn’t go unnoticed
Great job Jaylan for fighting for your rights! ✊🏿
Police statement and actions were trash. No accountability and let’s keep the scumbag officer on the payroll to do it again. SMDH
I wish police departments would have some sort of integrity code. They both clearly lied and should have been fired instantly. College students at most universities are held to a higher standard of honor and integrity in their math homework than these officers are when dealing with citizens lives’.
Keyword “lives”, not just grades or integrity. The young man was able to “go home”, tragically unlike many others.
it’s amazing that the bodycam video can disfunction so easily EXACTLY when it’s incriminating to the cop. Maybe the breathalyzer or teaser manufacturer should make the bodycams since they seem to work ALL THE TIME
That police statement is awful, take some accountability
Grateful for some for of justice but still infuriated by the total lack of accountability in the police statement. I just hope that Jaylan will be Mentally OK after this ordeal.
The PD totally failed to take any responsibility.