Parents sue Riverton police for shooting, killing their son after Fourth of July celebration

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A Utah couple sues Riverton police for their son's shooting death July Fourth.
They allege excessive force and scene manipulation after Ryan Ludeman's death.
Riverton police claim actions were lawful; parents seek $30 million in damages.

SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah couple is suing Riverton police after an officer shot and killed their son on a sidewalk after a Fourth of July celebration last year. They allege officers used excessive force, then manipulated the scene.

"We really don't want any other parents to live through the horror and the nightmare of, of what we're going through," Janelle Ludeman said.

Her son Ryan Ludeman, 23, was leaving the fireworks show last year when he was pulled over by officers investigating a minor car accident. When he refused to take a field sobriety test and police went to handcuff him, body camera video shows they saw a knife in his hand.

The family's attorney, Sam Meziani, told KSL that as an officer pulled him down, body camera shows he dropped the knife and put his hands up.

"He put his hand down to break his fall, and he was essentially kneeling when he was shot in the back of the head," Meziani said.

Their lawsuit alleges that before photographs of the scene were taken and after it was clear he was deceased, "officers began manipulating the scene and falsifying evidence." It says that at an officer's direction, EMS employees "moved the body from a vertical direction to an angled direction closer to the cellphone and knife."

In a statement to KSL, Riverton police said the officers acted reasonably in "a very stressful, rapidly evolving, and life-threatening encounter with Mr. Ludeman." The police department noted the office of Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill found the officers' actions were lawful.

"The city agrees with that conclusion and will mount a vigorous defense against plaintiffs' inaccurate claims," the statement states.

The district attorney's findings, released in April, do not mention what the Ludemans said is manipulation of the scene — something that's troubling to them and their attorney.

"It's a deeper question as to why the public doesn't see the entire facts until a family has to go out and hire a lawyer and file a federal lawsuit," Meziani said. "That doesn't happen until a family takes those steps."

The Ludemans said they hope the district attorney will take another look at the case. But in a statement, Gill stood by his decision not to file any criminal charges, saying it was made "based on the totality of the evidence."

"Other events subsequent to the use of deadly force, including, for example, the positioning of Mr. Ludeman's body during the protocol investigation does not change our understanding of the facts in this case, nor does it change our conclusions about the threat presented by Mr. Ludeman," Gill said.

Ryan Ludeman's parents said more than a year after his death, they're still adjusting to their new reality without him.

"It's always that, 'This doesn't happen to us, it only happens in movies,'" Janelle Ludeman said. "But it is real for us."

The Ludemans filed suit in federal court in August. They're seeking at least $30 million in damages.

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