Family files 3rd lawsuit against Independence police who shot man 15 times, killing him
Two women are suing three Independence police officers who shot and killed the father of their children after a police chase escalated into a fatal shooting in 2022.
Independence Police Department officers Hunter Soule and Jamie Welsh fatally shot Tyrea M. Pryor, 39, on March 11, 2022, following a car chase that ended near U.S. Highway 24 and Noland Road.
Ebony L. Findley, of Lancaster, Texas, who had two sons with Pryor, and Charisse A. Brown of Kansas City, who had a daughter with Pryor, filed a wrongful death lawsuit Friday in Jackson County court against Soule, Welsh and then-IPD officer Alex Steele, who also responded to the crash. One of Findley’s children and one of Brown’s children are also included as plaintiffs but not named in the lawsuit due to their age.
Findley and Brown previously filed two lawsuits in federal court against Soule and Welsh. Friday’s lawsuit is their first in county court and the first to name Steele as a defendant.
According to a spokesman from the Missouri State Highway Patrol, which investigated the shooting, Independence police responded to a disturbance around 8 p.m. at a home in the 800 block of E. College Street in Independence. When officers arrived, they allegedly saw Pryor and two passengers speeding away from the home in a white sedan and gave chase, a police spokesperson said in 2022.
The first police car had stopped chasing Pryor by the time he crashed into another car near U.S. 24, according to IPD. Video footage released by lawyers for Pryor’s family after the shooting shows Soule and Welsh walking up to the sedan after the crash and ordering a female passenger to get out. After speaking with Pryor, Soule and Welsh can be seen firing more than 20 shots into the car and hitting Pryor at least 15 times, killing him.
Though the officers did not face criminal charges in the shooting, the lawsuit is an effort to hold them liable in civil court for battery, alleging that shooting Pryor was “intentional and deliberate.”
“Defendants Soule and Welsh’s acts were carried out in bad faith and with malicious intent to harm Tyrea,” the lawsuit reads.
No criminal charges for officers
In March 2023, then-Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a statement that “it was indisputable Pryor did not have a gun in his hand” when he was shot, but due to the “reasonable belief” that a threat was being posed to police, the IPD officers who shot him would not be criminally prosecuted.
Findley previously told The Star that investigators first told her that Pryor had displayed a weapon before an alleged shootout between him and officers.
After the shooting, authorities said the two officers had seen Pryor display an AR-style rifle before they shot him. Attorneys for Pryor’s family later released transcripts from the MSHP investigation into the shooting, indicating that officers may have mistaken a pill bottle hidden in Pryor’s waistband for a pistol.
Steele, who had entered the backseat of the car just before the shooting, told MSHP investigators that he believed he had seen Pryor reach for the AR-style rifle propped between Pryor’s leg and car’s center console. He allegedly told Pryor to stop and tried to remove the gun himself, but Welsh — who was standing at the front of the car — told investigators that he started shooting after he thought he saw Pryor go for the weapon again.
According to the lawsuit and MSHP investigators, Pryor was pinned under his seat during the crash and suffered a lower body injury, which may have made him lose control of his lower extremities.
On dash camera footage released by IPD, one of the officers can be heard saying, “He’s got a gun!” before shooting Pryor. Dash camera footage shows officers removing an AR-style rifle from the car and placing it against a piece of electronic equipment. A pill bottle filled with baggies was also recovered from the scene.
On the video released by lawyers, one of the officers can be heard saying, “I don’t see a pistol,” just after shooting Pryor.
A trio of lawsuits
In a letter sent to Pryor’s family after the shooting, Peters Baker wrote that the officers had an obstructed view of Pryor during the whole incident, as the car’s windshield had been shattered in the preceding crash. However, she wrote officers still had reason to believe he posed a threat to them, and therefore can be exempt from criminal charges under Missouri’s use of force law.
Friday’s lawsuit, by contrast, alleges that Pryor posed no threat to the officers at the time, and that Steele was negligent in not informing his colleagues that he himself was reaching for the gun.
IPD declined Wednesday to comment on the pending litigation.
Both Soule and Welsh were placed on administrative leave after the shooting, according to IPD. Soule and Welsh still work for the department, though Steele no longer does, IPD spokesperson Officer Bryan Conley told The Star Wednesday.
Findley and Brown are seeking upwards of $25 million dollars from the three officers, according to the lawsuit. A case management conference has been scheduled for July 9 at 8:30 a.m.
Friday’s lawsuit marks the third attempt by Pryor’s family and loved ones to hold the officers who shot him liable in civil court, though it’s the first lawsuit to name Alex Steele as a defendant. In May 2023, Brown and Findley filed their first federal lawsuit against Soule and Welsh, a nearly identical document to Friday’s filing.
Brown and Findley filed a similar lawsuit against Soule and Welsh in federal court in January.
In both cases, a federal judge declined to prosecute, instead granting summary judgment to Soule and Welsh, Harry Daniels, an attorney for Brown and Findley, told The Star Tuesday. Daniels and the women’s other attorneys opted to respond with Friday’s lawsuit in county court because the federal judgment did not prohibit them from further pursuing claims of negligence against the officers, Daniels said.
“She determined that she didn’t believe they violated any federal laws when they killed Tyrea,” Daniels told The Star Tuesday. “So obviously we’re pursing them in state court at this time.”
The women’s legal team have filed an appeal against an 8th Circuit Court judge in reference to the January lawsuit, Daniels said.
“The video’s out there,” Daniels said. “The case still moves forward.”
