(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) — Jason Benton, a Partner in Parker Poe’s Charlotte office, received a favorable verdict representing three Asheville Police Department (“APD”) police officers in a police shooting case tried before a Buncombe County jury.

During a vehicular pursuit, the passenger was hit by two bullets fired by APD officers; the passenger sought compensation for $250,000 in medical expenses as well as up to $2,000,000 in pain and suffering and permanent injury damages. The passenger also sought punitive damages against the officers.

The jury concluded that the officers did not act maliciously when they fired more than two dozen shots at the car. The driver was operating it as a deadly weapon by trying to run over officers while they were on foot. Mr. Benton argued that the police officers were justified in discharging their firearms in the direction of the driver in defense of their own lives and the lives of others and that they did not know the passenger was in the car.

Prior to the civil trial, the driver pled guilty to three counts of assault with a deadly weapon on a government official and one count of fleeing and attempting to elude arrest and was sentenced to between 90 and 117 months in prison.

Mr. Benton is a trial lawyer with litigation experience in both trial and appellate courts. He received his JD and BA, cum laude, from Wake Forest University.

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Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein LLP has more than 190 lawyers in five offices located in major markets across North Carolina and South Carolina. The Firm provides legal counsel to large commercial and public organizations on litigation, corporate and regulatory matters.