Lawsuit won't be thrown out against former Columbus officer who shot man in bed
View a previous report from when Donovan Lewis' family filed their lawsuit in the video player above.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – A Franklin Court of Common Pleas judge has denied a request by a former Columbus police officer to throw out a civil lawsuit brought on by the family of Donovan Lewis.
Attorneys for ex-officer Ricky Anderson were denied two motions on Friday. The first motion was filed on April 24 asking for summary judgement, which asks a judge to issue a final judgement for one party without a trial. The second request, filed May 29, was a motion to strike, which asks a judge to remove objectionable material from a pleading.
Both were denied by Judge Karen Phipps, who cited testimony provided by Donovan Lewis' Estate, combined with the “adverse inferences based on Anderson’s invocation of the Fifth Amendment” during a deposition, as reason for the denial of the motion for summary judgement.
Regarding the motion to strike, the court “is satisfied that the failure to apply a notarial seal to the to the affidavits of Anderson and James Scanlon was a clerical error that was eventually corrected by council.”
Attorneys for Cooper Elliot, the firm representing Lewis' family, issued a statement after the motions were denied.
"Donovan’s family is now one step closer to getting their day in court," the attorneys wrote. "This decision is a crucial step toward holding people in positions of power accountable when they abuse that power."
The firm also expressed frustration with what they said were continued attempts to delay the trial, now and in the future.
"They don’t want a jury from our community to hear this case ... They plan to exploit a special appeal process available to police officers, a process not available to average citizens," the attorneys wrote. "It lets them appeal this ruling right away, instead of going to trial now."
Anderson, who is charged with murder and reckless homicide over Lewis' death in the Hilltop two years ago, was indicted in August 2023 nearly one year after he shot Lewis in the abdomen within a second of opening the door to an apartment bedroom, where Lewis was sitting up in bed.
A K-9 officer at the time, Anderson went to an apartment building in the 3200 block of Sullivant Avenue to serve Lewis an arrest warrant on August 22, 2022. Once in the apartment, the police dog began barking at a bedroom door in the back of the unit. Anderson and another officer walked to that door, guns drawn, and prepared to open it.
Body camera footage showed Anderson shot Lewis within a second of opening the bedroom door, while he was wrangling the K-9. The Franklin County Coroner determined Lewis died within minutes of being shot.
Officers stood outside Lewis’ bedroom, commanding him to show his hands and “crawl out here,” in the captured footage. About 30 seconds after Anderson shot Lewis, the officers entered the room to handcuff him, telling him to “stop resisting” in the process.
Body camera footage showed that officers waited a minute before calling for paramedics and approaching Lewis. Officers then carried Lewis down the apartment stairs, at one point dropping Lewis’ upper body, before laying him on the grass outside and rendering aid nearly four minutes after he was shot.
Lewis was facing charges of improperly handling a firearm, assault, and domestic violence.
Anderson was placed on administrative leave shortly after he killed Lewis. Weeks after Lewis’ family filed the wrongful death lawsuit, Columbus police announced Anderson retired in bad standing due to ongoing criminal and administrative investigations. The Columbus Director of Public Safety previously fired Anderson in 2004, but the Fraternal Order of Police challenged the termination, and he was ultimately reinstated.
A final pretrial conference in the civil case against Anderson is scheduled for Monday, and a trial assignment will take place on Sept. 23. His criminal trial is set for May 5, 2025.
View the denied motions below: