A former Umatilla Police Department detective is still the subject of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, but his bosses and the city of Umatilla are off the hook for now.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Hallman threw out a good portion of the lawsuit in a ruling Monday, a development first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive. As part of the ruling, Hallman allowed the key piece of the lawsuit against former Umatilla Detective Sgt. Bill Wright to proceed.
The lawsuit alleges that Wright failed to investigate the 2018 sexual assault of a minor — named Jane Doe in the suit to protect her identity — by Michael Wayne Lyon, who was 34 at the time and traveled from out of state to carry out the attack.
The FBI arrested Lyon in 2020, and he was convicted of child sex abuse. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March.
According to the lawsuit, Doe and her family provided Lyon’s first name and a physical description to Wright in 2018, as well as video from the assault that Lyon had sent to Doe’s brother as part of a threat.
Attorneys for Wright and the city of Umatilla moved to dismiss the civil lawsuit, arguing that Doe’s lawyers couldn’t prove that Wright treated Doe worse compared to a different group of people. The city’s attorneys, who also represented Police Chief Darla Huxel and Lt. Keith Kennedy, said that Doe’s legal team couldn’t prove their clients were directly involved in the incident.
At a July hearing, Hallman seemed open to removing Umatilla, Huxel and Kennedy from the lawsuit, but the defense’s attorneys couldn’t convince him to drop the equal protection lawsuit entirely.
In an interview, Terry Scannell, one of Doe’s attorneys, said he was disappointed that the lawsuit had been cut down, but was grateful that Hallman allowed it to continue.
“A lot of things that are in the news are what we call over-policing … This is a case of under-policing,” he said. “I think that’s what makes it unusual. It’s under-policing because our client was a girl or woman, not because of resources or other things.”
Scannell said Doe’s legal team will now start obtaining documents, as well as interviewing Wright and other Umatilla city staff, as a part of the discovery process. While Wright is now the only defendant, Scannell said his team could file new complaints should they discover evidence linking the city or Wright’s supervisors to the case.
Since Doe filed her lawsuit, Wright stopped working for the Umatilla Police Department. Huxel has also announced her intention to retire at the end of the year.
The court has not set a trial date yet.