CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The family of an innocent mother-of-two killed during a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department pursuit filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against the city of Charlotte Wednesday. The suit, filed with the Mecklenburg County Clerk of Superior Court, comes just days before the two-year anniversary of Brittany Webb's death.
Crash survivors Aaron Norward and Whitney McKinney, who were in the same car as Webb, also joined the lawsuit. At the time of the rush hour crash, the three friends were on the way to the hospital to visit Norward's newborn daughter.
As WCNC Charlotte previously reported, CMPD suspended two officers — identified as Adam Earl and Matthew-Ryan Lerlo — in the weeks after the Jan. 3, 2022, Statesville Road crash. Those two officers are named as defendants in the lawsuit. Court records and scanner traffic revealed the officers attempted to stop Bryan Gabriel Franklin, Jr. for driving with a covered, but still visible license plate. The officers made "several separate attempts" to stop the driver before he sped up and drove into the wrong lane, at which point they "disengaged" for the last time, according to court records.
Franklin, who is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, eventually reached an estimated 75 mph in the 45 mph stretch of road when he collided with the car carrying the three innocent bystanders, according to court records.
The newly filed lawsuit reveals additional details about CMPD's tactics before, during and after the pursuit thanks to body camera footage reviewed by the attorneys. The lawsuit accuses the officers of spending their day following the driver and later disobeying a supervisor's orders to discontinue any chase.
Beyond that, the lawsuit alleges police had the chance to de-escalate the situation prior to the crash when the driver slowed and stopped, but instead an officer "opened his door and aggressively pointed his gun at the driver's side window." According to the lawsuit, both officers "drew their guns again" a short time later.
"Scared for his life, guns pointed at him — the driver of the Jeep turned his vehicle around, and sped off," the lawsuit states. "The officers did the same, running roughshod in four-wheeling fashion ... and again they dangerously gave chase through the neighborhood."
Following the wreck, the lawsuit said a sergeant asked the officers, "Didn't y'all hear me saying, 'we don't need to (CODE) 43 or to chase this vehicle?" What happened?"
The lawsuit goes on to allege that a CMPD officer was laughing on body camera footage and joked that the officers in question, Earl and Lerlo, "get their stories together" for the department's internal investigation.
"This officer outrageously says that he was 'going to tell Earl and Lerlo to get their stories together for Internal Affairs [to] make sure they are on the same page about what happened," the suit states. "But this was just the beginning of the efforts to sweep 'what happened' under the rug."
Webb spent weeks on life support before passing away. Norward, meanwhile, spent a month in a coma before he overcame failing organs, hours of surgery, broken bones, torn ligaments and a brain injury. He also had to learn how to swallow, talk and walk again. Neither Norward nor Webb were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash. Webb died 18 days later.
Webb's attorney told WCNC Charlotte the plaintiffs provided Mayor Vi Lyles' office and the city attorney's office with a draft of their complaint earlier this month and invited them to meet and discuss, but "never received any contact from the City." Citing personnel privacy laws, CMPD previously refused to answer specific questions about the crash.
A WCNC Charlotte investigation found, in the decade leading up to the deadly crash, the number of CMPD pursuits had more than quadrupled. CMPD data showed roughly one out of every four pursuits ended in crashes since 2010. CMPD's directives only allow pursuits when an officer "has reasonable suspicion that the driver or occupant has committed or is attempting to commit a crime dangerous to life" or "can articulate the exigent need to apprehend the suspect(s) because of potential harm to the public if they are not apprehended."
WCNC Charlotte petitioned the court to release roughly 40 police videos tied to the pursuit in 2022, but a Mecklenburg County judge ruled CMPD does not have to release body camera footage until the "final conclusion" of the criminal case. Franklin's second-degree murder case remains pending.
Webb and Norward's attorneys have long indicated their desire to hold the people responsible accountable.
"It's not about money, it's about getting answers," attorney Paul Dickinson said in 2022. "It's about holding those who are responsible accountable for their actions. In this case, I see multiple parties that need to be held accountable."
"There needs to be responsibility, in that if the police do something they're not supposed to do, where if they engage in a chase in a populated place, we don't think that's good policy or good law," attorney Gary Mauney said in 2022. "It's why I became an attorney to change things that are unjust."
A WCNC Charlotte analysis of federal data identified a record number of innocent people who have died as a consequence of police pursuits. Webb is among at least 4,200 innocent victims killed over the last four decades in connection to police pursuits, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration records analyzed by WCNC Charlotte.
In September, new federal recommendations urged police to limit unnecessary pursuits.