FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO): The Indiana State Police wants to appeal a wrongful death lawsuit over the death of a Fort Wayne man before any ruling on the lawsuit has actually been made.
According to the Journal Gazette, the ISP’s lawyers want the judge to pause the case and send the lawsuit for appeal, questioning whether or not the suit over the 2012 death of Lucius Washington was filed too late.
Washington was unarmed and fleeing when he was shot by State Trooper Seth Mann in 2012 after Mann broke up an assault on West Main Street. The statute of limitations is two years, but the case was filed in 2017 after someone anonymously sent copies of internal reviews of the shooting to Washington’s family: one of the reviews found fault with Mann’s actions, but the other didn’t.
It’s the second time the ISP has attempted to use what’s called an interlocutory appeal in the case; the Indiana Court of Appeals declined to hear the last one in 2018.
