WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court won’t hear a civil rights case brought by the parents of a teenager who was naked and unarmed when he was fatally shot by an Oklahoma police officer in 2019.
The high court on Monday rejected without comment the lawsuit bought by the parents of Isaiah Lewis. Police have said that the 17-year-old was shot after he broke into a home in Edmond and attacked two officers. They have said that a stun gun had no effect on him.
Lewis’ lawyers wrote that on the day he was shot he had inadvertently smoked marijuana laced with PCP. His parents argued that he was experiencing a mental health crisis and that police used excessive force.
An autopsy report found Lewis suffered a total of four gunshot wounds to his face, thighs and groin.
A federal trial court judge had allowed the lawsuit against the officer who shot Lewis to go forward, but a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver reversed that ruling. The Supreme Court’s decision not to take the case leaves the appeals court ruling in place.
