REDWOOD CITY — The family of a popular Palo Alto middle school teacher killed by Redwood City police has filed a federal wrongful-death lawsuit, arguing that officers should have treated him as someone in the throes of a suicidal mental-health crisis instead of shooting him within seconds of encountering him.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the law firm of civil-rights attorney John Burris, also alleges that inadequate police training resulted in the Dec. 10, 2018 death of 33-year-old Kyle Hart, who was a married father of two young children, including a daughter born just three days before he was killed.
His wife Kristin Hart has since advocated for increased and compulsory crisis training for Redwood City officers and for equipping them with less lethal weapons as well as body cameras. The department began rolling out body cameras earlier this year, a practice widely adopted in the past decade by other regional police agencies.
“Kyle died without the comfort of his family near him, we did not say goodbye,” Hart said during a press conference Wednesday. “I don’t know who (the police) were there to serve and protect that day, but it was not our family. Kyle’s rights were violated and he is dead. He deserved better, and the citizens of Redwood City deserve better.”
Kyle Hart, a history and English teacher at Greene Middle School in Palo Alto, had used a knife to slash himself in the forearm, chest and neck that Dec. 10 morning, prompting his wife to call 911.
Kristin Hart said Wednesday her husband didn’t have any previous inclination to hurt himself, but became “very ill very quickly.” When officers Roman Gomez and Leila Velez arrived, they found him covered in blood, some of which caused her to slip and fall moments earlier, breaking her arm.
She said that instead of helping her husband, who had headed to the backyard with a different knife, the officers “came in with guns drawn and shot him.”
“He was not a threat to me, our two-year-old son or our newborn daughter,” Hart said. “He loved life and he did not want to die that day.”
According to an investigative report issued by the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office, Gomez and Velez went into the yard and Gomez immediately told Kyle Hart to drop the butcher knife in his hand. Instead Hart raised it to shoulder level and started moving toward the officers, according to the report.
Velez reported firing her Taser at Hart when he was about 15 feet from the officers, but it did not work because only one of the weapon’s two probes struck him.
The DA report stated that Hart had gotten within six to eight feet of the officers when Gomez fired five times, hitting him three times. In clearing the officers of any criminal liability, the DA’s office concluded in its report that the confrontation and threat unfolded too rapidly for the officers to do anything other than defend themselves.
Kristin Hart and Burris flatly reject that assertion, and the lawsuit emphasizes how the time that passed between when the officers entered the yard and when Kyle Hart was mortally wounded totaled just 16 seconds.
Burris said Wednesday he hopes the case will help to redefine and reiterate how mentally ill people ought to be treated by local law enforcement.
“In situations when family members call for help because their loved one is suffering from a mental health crisis, we’ve seen way too often that when police arrive they wind up killing the person; killing them under highly questionable circumstances,” Burris said.
There’s no video of the incident because Redwood City police did not wear body cameras at the time, but a schematic drawing Burris presented Wednesday describes it lasting 30 seconds from the time police heard that Hart was in the backyard to when they shot and killed him.
Burris contends the officers did not take a moment to create a plan and de-escalate the situation after learning that Hart was suffering a mental health crisis, instead rushing into something they were not prepared for.
“Unfortunately we had officers who just panicked and had no idea what to do or ignored their training,” Burris said. “They did not act in a way that showed they had experience with someone who is mentally impaired.”
Ben Nisenbaum, an attorney with Burris’ law firm, said police are responsible for the incident escalating, adding that they should have “created space” between themselves and Hart. He called the shooting “unreasonable,” noting that coming in with weapons drawn and shooting Hart with a Taser “created a confrontation.”
“How else do you explain this?” Nisenbaum said. “There’s a way to approach a person and police are trained to do that. If that person appears to be intent on approaching you, then what do you do? You change your location.”
In this case, Nisenbaum said the officers had an “obvious path backwards. But do they take it? No. Instead, they shoot the person.”
Now a single mother taking care of two children on her own, Kristin Hart was visibly upset Wednesday and cried out for justice and change in the system. She said she’s talked multiple times with Redwood City officials and went into mediation with them, but the outcome was “not successful.”
Because she has not heard from local officials whether the police department has made any significant changes, Hart said she decided to sue in an effort to ensure what happened to her husband doesn’t ever happen again.
“We need a comprehensive approach for how Redwood City police respond to these situations,” Hart said. “It must be based in a culture that truly values all people. Kyle was a sick person in need of help, and rather than providing the help the police killed him.”
Listed as defendants in the lawsuit are Gomez, Velez, police Chief Dan Mulholland, the city of Redwood City, and dozens of other unnamed parties.
Redwood City spokeswoman Jennifer Yamaguma said in a statement that the city hasn’t been served with the suit yet, but its practice is to not comment about active litigation. Yamaguma cited the city’s pilot program to provide mental health crisis services through the county as one way officials have worked with Hart to change policy, but Hart criticized it as not being a long-term solution.
“The loss of life is always tragic, as is the case with the death of Mr. Hart. City staff have appreciated the opportunity to work with the Hart family in the past and to listen to their recommendations on policing policies,” the statement says.
