SALT LAKE CITY (CN) - A former undercover officer claims a Salt Lake City suburb scapegoated him for reports of widespread evidence blunders and public outcry over the shooting death of a young woman.
Shaun Cowley sued West Valley City and its Police Department, the city manager, Salt Lake County and its district attorney, and seven high-ranking police officers and former officers, on Tuesday in Federal Court.
Twenty-one-year-old Danielle Willard was shot to death by the West Valley undercover drug force on Nov. 2, 2012. Her parents blamed Cowley and his partner, Officer Salmon.
Willard's parents sued the officers, the city and police supervisors in June 2103, claiming their daughter had been shot "assassination style" as she sat in her car, amid "widespread and systemic corruption" in the undercover drug force.
They called the killing "untimely and unwarranted," and claimed that Cowley and Salmon had "engaged in a pattern and practice of illegal conduct."
Their complaint said: "West Valley City admits to rampant corruption and systemic constitutional violations by its officers, including mishandling of evidence, confiscation of drugs for personal benefit, theft of seized property, illegal use of GPS tracking systems, improper use of confidential drug informants, and commission of perjury.
"Since the shooting death of Danielle Willard, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill has sought the dismissal of 115 criminal cases and the United States Attorney's Office has dismissed eleven criminal cases as a result of the illegal conduct of the defendant officers and others within the department."
In his new complaint, Cowley seeks punitive damages for malicious prosecution, constitutional violations, abuse of process, state law violations, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Here's what happened the way Cowley tells it in his lawsuit.
He was transferred to West Valley City's neighborhood narcotics unit in 2011.
Cowley claims that neither he nor any other undercover officer received "any formal training" upon recruitment, including instruction on drug enforcement procedures or evidence handling.
In January 2012, Cowley says, he assisted his supervisor, defendant Lt. John Coyle, in a "knock and talk" investigation. Coyle called him and said he had seen "drug paraphernalia and a large amount of U.S. currency in plain sight after knocking on a suspect's door," according to the complaint.
Coyle asked him to help in the search while a third officer secured a warrant, Cowley says, and when he arrived at the suspect's home, Coyle already was searching it and had found the cash "inside the closed drawers of a tool chest."
"Cowley confronted Coyle regarding Coyle's illegal search in front of WVC Detectives Salmon and Smith. Coyle ordered Cowley to be quiet or face punishment for insubordination," according to the complaint. "Cowley shortly thereafter asked to be transferred from the NNU [neighborhood narcotics unit] but was denied a transfer."
Salmon and Smith are not named as defendants in Cowley's case.
A July 2012 audit of the police department and the drug unit revealed "questionable evidence-handling practices," Cowley says, but "West Valley ignored the audits."
In October that year Cowley was named employee of the month for his work on a white supremacist case, he says, but he was falling behind on his "procedural work" because of the overwhelming increase in drug investigations."