Dec. 21—A Jasper County judge said Thursday he will study issues related to a request to protect the identity of a Joplin police officer who inadvertently shot a 2-year-old girl during a standoff involving her father more than two years ago.
Judge David Mouton said he also would have to consider whether he had legal authority in the case.
The shooting occurred March 26, 2022, in Baxter Springs, Kansas, when Joplin and other agencies were called to assist Baxter Springs police in a standoff with Eli Crawford. He had killed his wife that day during a domestic dispute and was holding their young daughter in his trailer. He had fired repeatedly to try to fend off law enforcement. Law enforcers reported that they tried to get the man to surrender or stop firing.
But they finally decided to authorize a Joplin SWAT team officer to shoot Crawford if he had a clear shot. Authorities said later that the officer believed he could see the father in a window of the trailer and fired but instead it was the young girl, Clesslynn Crawford.
Last year, the city of Joplin paid a $1.4 million settlement to the grandparents of the girl, most of it covered by the city’s insurer. Other agencies paid the remainder of the $1.5 million settlement in the case, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Wichita, Kansas.
After the shooting, the Cherokee County, Kansas, prosecutor issued a report concluding no charges were warranted against the Joplin officer and cleared him of any wrongdoing.
The grandparents’ lawsuit alleged that the father asked the law enforcement officers to allow him to send the girl out of the trailer, but a report by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation in April 2022 made no mention of any demand by the father to have the girl removed from the scene.
The officer who fired the shot filed a lawsuit against the city of Joplin four days after the settlement to prevent the city from disclosing his name. In it, the officer is identified only as John Doe.
Risk to officer
Lawsuit documents state that the release of his name “is reasonably likely to pose a clear and present danger to the safety” of the officer and perhaps his family. The lawsuit contends that because of the danger, Missouri’s Open Records law requires the name be closed and redacted from any records.
Sam Zeff, a National Public Radio reporter for Kansas City affiliate KCUR, has filed as an intervenor in the case, opposing the closure. He has sought the name from the city in an open records request and asks that the lawsuit be dismissed.
The city contends there is a disagreement on whether the records containing the officer’s name are still subject to litigation. It also contends the name cannot be made public except by a judge’s order.
An attorney for the officer, Sean P. McCauley, of Kansas City, contended in court on Thursday that a section of the Missouri Open Records law allows the injunction because the officer and/or his family could be in danger if their identity were known.
A Joplin man, Nathaniel Dagley, filed an open records request in October 2023. A few days later, another request was filed by Zeff.
When the request was made, the officer was told that the city would have to release his name because of Sunshine Law requirements. The officer’s lawsuit has so far prevented that disclosure.
A few months after the girl was killed, social media posts appeared saying “Blue Wall of Silence” and offering a $1,000 reward for the name of the officer.
The officer’s attorney, McCauley, cited a section of the Sunshine Law at Thursday’s hearing that states, “If any portion of a record or document of a law enforcement officer or agency, other than an arrest report, which would otherwise be open, contains information that is reasonably likely to pose a clear and present danger to the safety of any victim, witness, undercover officer, or other person; or jeopardize a criminal investigation, including records which would disclose the identity of a source wishing to remain confidential or a suspect not in custody; or which would disclose techniques, procedures or guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, that portion of the record shall be closed and shall be redacted from any record made available pursuant to this chapter.”
The attorney representing those seeking release of the name, Bernard J. Rhodes, also of Kansas City, said, “If it’s really so dangerous, why hasn’t the city taken action” to protect the officer? The social media comments in the past are no longer posted. Because those do not continue, the officer has no cause of action under the Sunshine Law, he said.