Jury Awards $765,000 for Injury During a Riot

The then-19-year-old UA freshman who lost his eye from damage by a 'less-lethal' police round says he's happy the city was found 'more at fault than me.'


A jury awarded $765,000 to a former University of Arizona student who lost an eye when he was hit by a police beanbag round during the April 2001 riot on Fourth Avenue.


In awarding Jeffrey Knepper $1.5 million yesterday, jurors found he bore 49 percent of the responsibility for his injury and the city, the defendant in the suit, 51 percent of the responsibility, meaning Knepper will receive $765,000.


"They found the city more at fault than me and I'm glad about that," Knepper said after a court clerk announced the verdict about 4 p.m. yesterday.


Knepper's suit was one of at least six filed against the city since the riot. Daryl Audilett, a private attorney hired by the city in the Knepper suit, said last week he believed two had been dismissed and four are pending. Commenting on the verdict in the Knepper suit, Police Chief Richard Miranda said, "I always felt there was a percentage of fault on both sides and I always felt I would like to rely on the jury to determine that percentage.


"The jury made its decision and I have to respect that," Miranda said.


Does the jury finding fault on Knepper's part in any way vindicate police actions the night of the riot?


"I think, to some people in this community, the department was 100 percent responsible for what happened," Miranda said. "The jury said other people (also) were responsible."


"It's just been such a stress," Knepper said of the trial, which began April 15 with jury selection. Testimony in the case ended Wednesday and closing arguments were made Thursday by Audilett and Carl Piccarreta, Knepper's attorney.


Knepper learned about 3 p.m. a verdict had likely been reached, but by the time jurors and attorneys could be assembled in Judge Christopher C. Browning's courtroom at Superior Court, Knepper had waited nearly an hour to hear what the five men and five women had decided. Piccarreta had asked jurors to award Knepper $2.1 million for current and future medical bills and his pain and suffering from the injury.


Despite getting less than half that amount for his client, Piccarreta said, "I'm pleased and relieved." "I think it was a fair verdict. It's not a windfall. It's in that reasonable area," he said.


Attorney Darwin Nelson, filling in for Audilett, who was out of town on another case, said of the verdict, "I'm sure it's disappointing."


He said, based on what he knew of Audilett's case, "I'm sure it's another instance in which people don't take responsibility for their actions."


Audilett had argued strongly during the trial that Knepper, captured on videotape on the northwest corner of North Fourth and East Eighth Street, the heart of the riot, had stayed there too long, remaining while cars were overturned and set on fire.


"Who has the best opportunity to prevent this injury? ... Mr. Knepper," Audilett told jurors. During the night of the riot, April 2, 2001, Knepper "is in the thick of it before he's hit, he's in the thick of it when he's hit, he's in the thick of it after he's hit."


Recounting the riot, Audilett said, "It gets ugly and violent, he stays. It gets uglier and more violent, he stays."


As the police line advanced, officers clapped batons against riot shields, rolled "sting-ball" grenades that exploded loudly and fired aerial diversion devices, similar to flares, into the air, all of which Audilett said were "clues" it was time to leave.


"He stayed longer than he should have, he stayed after his friends left ... and then he stands here with his hand out and wants to be made a millionaire," Audilett said.


Knepper testified that when the police line approached he left, walking, then jogging east on Eighth Street. After he got about 90 feet east of the intersection, he heard a loud noise behind him, turned to look over his left shoulder, and was hit in the left eye with the beanbag filled with lead shot, fired from a 12-gauge shotgun.


Piccarreta conceded in his closing statement that Knepper, then a 19-year-old UA freshman, stayed too long in the parking lot of The Hut bar, where the most violent rioting occurred.


But he told jurors, being in The Hut parking lot doesn't justify being shot in the eye 15 minutes later. At least one juror, however, agreed with Audilett. "I think he shouldn't have been there," said Sean Christian Smith, 32, an unemployed product support representative for a local company.


Smith said he favored giving Knepper $102,000. Audilett told jurors he thought $252,000 was fair.


"I think we gave him too much money," Smith said. Another juror, Frank Gonzales, a 40-year-old state employee, said that at the start of deliberation, "I was on the Knepper side."


He moved more toward the city's position as deliberations continued from late Thursday, through Friday and for two hours yesterday.


Gonzales said no one thing changed his mind about the case, it was "just a little bit of everything." He said the judgment is fair.


Unlike a verdict in a criminal case, a verdict in a civil case, such as Knepper's, does not have to be agreed upon unanimously. With 10 jurors, seven had to agree on a verdict, Browning said during the trial. Rioting broke out along North Fourth after UA's loss to Duke University in the NCAA national basketball championship.


Some 2,000 people surged up and down the avenue. Some tore down street signs; threw rocks, bottles and chunks of concrete at police; and overturned and set fire to cars and a motor home.


Flames from a fire spread to the nearby Hut, where some 20 men, women and children had sought refuge from the unrest.


Police fired hundreds of rounds of what they call "less-lethal" ordnance, including lead-shot beanbags, wooden and rubber dowels. At least 40 people were struck. Knepper filed a $3 million claim for damages stemming from losing his eye. The claim was one of 23 claims totalling nearly $11 million filed against the city after the riot. The city denied all but one of them, paying a man $540 for damage by police to his car. After his claim was denied, Knepper filed suit against the city for an unspecified damages. Efforts to settle the suit out of court failed shortly before the trial began.