Attorney for city questions police shooting victim on day 2 of civil trial

An attorney defending the city of Eugene against a police excessive force lawsuit on Tuesday, Sept. 23, questioned a man shot by police, bringing up how parts of the man’s “story” had not been shared with sheriff’s office investigators when they reviewed the 2016 shooting.

Edgar T. Rodriguez took the witness stand for the second day as part of a civil trial in U.S. District Court in Eugene. He was shot by police while holding a gun outside his apartment and has filed the lawsuit alleging excessive force, battery and negligence.

On the trial’s first day, Rodriguez testified that early on the morning of Sept. 10, 2016, he stood outside near his door when he heard someone say “gun” and he was shot, and that he flung a pistol he was holding by its barrel perhaps some 20 feet in a direction away from him.

“In fact, you gave different stories at that time about how the gun ended up where it was, didn’t you?” asked Erik Hasselman, an attorney representing the city as well as two police officers and an emergency dispatcher named in the lawsuit.

“I don’t believe so,” Rodriguez replied.

But Hasselman followed up, asking if Rodriguez had shared details about tossing the gun and where he had been standing with sheriff’s office investigators when they reviewed the shooting.

After a long pause, Rodriguez said, “Not that I recall.”

Hasselman said it wasn’t until 2023 that Rodriguez first stated details such as throwing the pistol in the direction of where the gunfire came from and that he had been shot while standing near his door.

In an opening statement Monday, Ben Miller, an assistant city attorney, told jurors that the two police officers “had a totally different version of events” than that presented by Rodriguez and his attorneys.

Rodriguez told jurors Monday he held a .50 caliber Desert Eagle pistol by its barrel and was en route to putting it in his vehicle for safekeeping after calling 911 to get help in dealing with an unruly house guest.

His lawsuit names two officers, Timothy Hunt and Mark Hubbard, as defendants, as well as the city of Eugene for “maintaining policies or customs exhibiting deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of people to whom their employees would interact with and respond to,” according to court documents.

The complaint, filed in 2018, also names as a defendant Faith McCready, a dispatcher who answered Rodriguez’s call to 911.

Hasselman also asked Rodriguez why he considered McCready negligent.

Rodriguez answered that she told him during the 911 call that police were at a double-story building.

But Hasselman said that wasn’t true.

In audio played before jurors, the dispatcher did not say police were at a double-story building, but asked Rodriguez if he was on the first or second floor.

“She’s asking you,” Hasselman said during his questioning of Rodriguez, who testified that he still thought she was negligent because he lived in a one-story apartment building.