PANAMA CITY — The trial in a federal lawsuit filed by relatives of a Freeport man gunned down in a secluded, heavily wooded area began Monday.
Jurors were selected for the civil trial in U.S. District Court in Panama City against a sheriff of Walton County and a deputy after Jeffery Weekley was shot and killed in the woods near his Freeport residence. Family members of Weekley filed the lawsuit on behalf of his daughter, a minor, against Deputy Nick Embry and Sheriff Michael Adkinson. It claims the deputy used excessive force and the Walton County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) did not investigate the homicide nor discipline the deputy in the wake of the 2009 shooting.
But what transpired in the woods — known only to Embry and the deceased Weekley — is the main point of contention.
Embry, still employed by WCSO, appeared in his uniform Monday prompting a plaintiff request for a mistrial. During opening arguments, David Bennett, attorney for the Weekleys, said he intends to show inconsistencies between Embry’s official reports and trajectory tests from the two, fatal 9-mm rounds fired into Weekley’s chest.
“To achieve that angle he has to be sitting down or crouched,” Bennett said of Embry.
But Embry’s defense argued he had reason to believe Weekley was armed and dangerous.
“As (Embry) is yelling, ‘Get back; show me your hands,’ Weekley leans down in a football stance,” said Carl Raymond Peterson Jr. “Then he jams his hands in his pockets and lunges forward.”
On Aug. 3, 2009, Evelyn Burch called WCSO to remove Weekley from her Pope Street home in Freeport. The two were non-blood relatives living together in the residence at the time. When Embry arrived at about 5:30 p.m., Burch told him Weekley had left the home but wanted him trespassed from the property, according to the complaint against Embry.
“He knew backup was on the way,” Bennett said. “While he knew his job was to protect the caller, he took the search for Weekley upon himself.”
In Embry’s reports, he said he saw the 40-year-old Weekley lying face down behind some bushes when he came across him. Embry ordered Weekley to come closer so they could talk. Within seconds after he began to approach Embry, Weekley lay dead on the ground from two gunshots to the chest.
Attorneys for the Weekley estate have said he did not provoke Embry, had no weapons in his possession and presented Embry with no reason to believe he was dangerous, since Embry was not responding to a criminal felony call.
However, defense attorneys have dispatch calls to Embry, informing him that Weekley usually carried a pocket knife and was possibly intoxicated. Embry’s attorneys indicated they will argue that, once the two encountered one another, Weekley offered no other alternate ending.
“There’s only one person responsible for Jeffery Weekley’s death, and that is Jeffery Weekly,” Peterson said.
The lawsuit further alleges Adkinson was aware Embry had engaged in “bizarre, dangerous and deceptive actions,” but Adkinson did not investigate Weekley’s death or discipline Embry. Plaintiffs are asking for damages of more than $20 million for damages suffered by Weekley’s daughter.
“Now there’s a 15-year-old daughter this father was taken away from,” Bennett said.
The trial continues Tuesday.