Jeffersonville seeks ruling on damage to home

The city of Jeffersonville is asking a judge or jury to decide the market value of damages to the home and furniture of R. Monty Snelling during a police shooting last July.

The city filed a verified complaint in Clark Circuit Court seeking a declaratory judgment late last month. Snelling and city attorney Larry Wilder reported Thursday that, since that time, Circuit Court Judge Dan Moore recused himself from the case and a new judge is being sought.

Legal filings have been the story on both sides since bullets fired by Jeffersonville Police Department officers flew into Snelling’s Springdale Drive home as officers shot at and killed 48-year-old Robert E. Grattan Jr. — an alleged bank robber — in July. The Clark County Prosecutor’s Office deemed the shooting justified, as Grattan pointed a gun at officers following an hours-long standoff.

Snelling — coincidentally a former candidate for mayor of Jeffersonville and then member of the Police Merit Commission — talked about the incident in detail for the first time during a Thursday interview.

On that Saturday afternoon last summer, Snelling said his grandkids were in a backyard swimming pool less than 100 feet from where rifles were being pointed at Grattan. He said he heard thumping coming from the roof, later realizing that one officer had climbed on the house to get a different vantage point.

He said he looked outside and saw people all over the neighborhood, many as spectators with lawn chairs watching the scene unfold. At one point, he started to come out of the house and was ordered back in by an officer with a megaphone.

“No one had ever checked on my family,” he said.

When shots were fired that afternoon, bullets came into the house — one just a few feet away from his 8-year-old granddaughter. A love seat, an end table, a window and outdoor siding on the home were damaged during the incident, thus beginning a months-long back and forth between Snelling and the city about what was owed for the damage.

Snelling said he was first told to get price quotes on the items and that he would be given a check to cover the damage. He got rid of all the furniture after learning that the maker of the loveseat was out of business and that it could not be repaired or replaced.

Later, he said, he got a call from the city’s insurance company, saying that because the shooting was deemed justifiable, the city was not liable for the damages. He tried to get his own homeowners’ insurance to pay for it. The company agreed to pay for damages to the house, but not for the furniture and, he said, his rates would have gone up because of the incident.

At that point, Snelling said he approached Mayor Tom Galligan — who he’d challenged in the mayor’s race in 2007 — about the issue. He said Galligan assured him that the city would pay for the damages.

Later, a city official, who Snelling declined to name, came to his house accompanied by police officers and told him that the city would purchase the new furniture for him because it would not have to pay sales taxes.

“I almost lost my granddaughter; I’ve gone through all this stress and [they’re] worried about sales taxes,” he said.

After declining that offer, another city official contacted him about getting a check to cover the damage.

When that fell through, “I went to my attorney and said ‘What do I do?’”

At that point, Snelling filing a notice of tort claim against the city.

The filing claimed that police agencies caused emotional and psychological injury as well as damaged property. The claim says police not only failed to remove the family from danger, but also actively prohibited them from removing themselves.

Additionally, it says that the department failed to use adequate care in their use of deadly force and in failing to protect the family.

Snelling said he asked the city for $9,600 for the damages; however the maximum amount sought, according to the tort claim, is $700,000.

“I had no intention of suing when I filed the tort claim,” Snelling said.

Wilder said the city’s offer to buy Snelling a new love seat and end table, pay for the window and have an estimate done on the siding could still be acceptable.

“The city is trying to get this over with,” Wilder said.

The offer Wilder referred to was initially made in August. Snelling said he still wants the city to write a check to cover the damage, saying that’s how an auto insurance company would handle it after an accident.

“I guess if it goes out far enough, I’ll have to file a suit, but I don’t want to do that,” he said.

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New judge sought in case involving Monty Snelling’s house

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