City: Police had no constitutional duty to protect murder victim • Iowa Capital Dispatch
Bellevue police say they're not liable for failing to enforce a no-contact order and arrest warrant for a man who later murdered his wife.
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City: Police had no constitutional duty to protect murder victim
Family’s lawsuit says police inaction contributed to shotgun slaying
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Exhibits from the trial in which Christopher Prichard was convicted of murdering his estranged wife, Angela Prichard: a photo of the victim and a note she wrote shortly before her death, saying, “I think Chris is capable of anything. He told my sister he didn’t care if he went to jail. He put guns all over upstairs in three different rooms.” (Exhibits from Iowa District Court files)
Lawyers for the City of Bellevue are arguing in court that the police department shouldn’t be held liable for failing to enforce a no-contact order and arrest warrant for a man who subsequently murdered his estranged wife.
Quoting from past state and federal court decisions, the city argues police officers have no constitutional duty to protect individuals from harm and instead have a more generalized duty to serve the public.
The arguments are being made in a federal civil lawsuit filed against the city by the family of the late Angela Marie Prichard, who was shot and killed by her estranged husband, Christopher Prichard, in 2022.
The lawsuit claims the killing was the result of a “state-created danger” caused by the malfeasance, reckless or intentional behavior of the Bellevue Police Department. It accuses city police officers of “showing favoritism toward Christopher Prichard,” and alleges that his relationship with the police “enabled and fostered” his ability to murder his estranged wife.
Christopher Prichard (Photo courtesy of Jackson County)According to the lawsuit, Christopher Prichard was arrested in November 2019 on a charge of first-degree theft. The police allegedly “acquiesced” to his release on bail and to 31 continuances in the case over the next four years. Those continuances, the lawsuit claims, “enabled Christopher Prichard to remain free of custody and emboldened him to repeatedly harass and assault Angela Marie Prichard.”
The police department’s actions were allegedly influenced by the fact that Christopher Prichard had “a personal relationship with one or more” of the city police officers and the fact that he had provided officers with electrical services at no cost or for a reduced fee.
Court records indicate that on April 18, 2022, Christopher Prichard was arrested for domestic violence against his estranged wife, and a no-contact order was issued in the case. A few months later, Angela Prichard allegedly located a tracking device in her Jeep as well as two hidden cameras that had been placed in her home — potential violations of Iowa’s anti-stalking and invasion of privacy laws.
Angela Prichard notified the Bellevue police of the situation and, according to the lawsuit, the police “refused to enforce the law.”
Lawsuit lays out chronology of events
On Aug. 23, 2022, the lawsuit alleges, Christopher Prichard sent threatening text messages to Angela Prichard, stating “it is going to get real f—ing ugly.” Angela Prichard notified the police, who took no action in the matter, the lawsuit alleges.
On Aug. 28, 2022, the lawsuit alleges, Christopher Prichard told Angela Prichard he intended to “destroy” her business, which led to another complaint to the city police that resulted in no enforcement action.
On Sept. 1, 2022, a temporary restraining order was issued to shield Angela Prichard from any further contact from her estranged husband. Over the next 13 days, Angela Prichard reported at least nine alleged violations of the order, including one that was documented with text messages, but the police took no action, the lawsuit alleges.
Court records show that on Sept. 15, 2022, Christopher Prichard spent one night in jail for violating the order, then failed to show up for a series of court hearings, then failed to turn himself in to serve a six-day jail sentence. As a result, a warrant was issued for his arrest. The lawsuit alleges that police “flat-out refused to enforce the warrant and arrest Christopher Prichard.”
On the morning of Oct. 8, 2022, Christopher Prichard, armed with a shotgun, entered the Mississippi Ridge Kennels where Angela Prichard worked, and killed her. He was later convicted of murder in the first degree.
The court must avoid plaintiffs’ efforts to conflate these events and keep its focus solely on the hours immediately leading up to Ms. Prichard’s death.
– Attorneys for the City of Bellevue
In April, Angela Prichard’s family sued the city, demanding damages for violations of due process rights through a state-created danger, violations of state law regarding the enforcement of no-contact orders, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and loss of consortium.
The city has yet to file an answer to the lawsuit, but has filed what it calls a “pre-answer motion to dismiss.” As part of that motion, lawyers for the city argue that while the Iowa Legislature could have passed legislation allowing civil lawsuits for failure by the police to enforce a no-contact order, it opted not to do so.
In court filings, the city also expresses “vehement disagreement” with the family’s portrayal of the facts, but adds that “even if all these facts are assumed to be entirely true, the United States Supreme Court has already determined that plaintiffs’ due process claim must be dismissed.”
Colorado case involved the murder of three children
As the basis for its argument, attorneys for the City of Bellevue cite a highly controversial 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a case involving police in Castle Rock, Colorado, in which the justices affirmed the principle that the police have no duty to protect members of the public.
The Castle Rock ruling stemmed from a lawsuit that grew out of a restraining order issued in conjunction with divorce proceedings between Jessica and Simon Gonzales. A month after was issued, the couple’s three girls disappeared from Jessica Gonzales’ home. Suspecting Simon Gonzales had taken the children in violation of the judge’s order, Jessica Gonzales complained to the police and provided evidence in the form of a phone call in which Simon Gonzales indicated he’d taken the children to an amusement park.
The police told Jessica Gonzales to wait and see if the children were returned by 10 p.m. Shortly after 10 p.m., Jessica Gonzales notified the police her children were still missing, but was again told to wait for their return, this time until midnight.
She then went to the police station to file a report, but the responding officer allegedly took no action in the matter and instead went to dinner. A few hours later, the husband showed up at the police station with a gun and opened fire. He was killed by officers who then found the dead bodies of the missing children in the back of his truck.
Jessica Gonzales sued the city of Castle Rock, alleging the police department had an official policy or practice of ignoring violations of restraining orders.
The case was dismissed, and in her appeal Jessica Gonzales argued Colorado law made the enforcement of restraining orders mandatory. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected that claim. Writing for the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia concluded Jessica Gonzales did not have an interest in police enforcement of a restraining order that would be subject to protection under the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Although Colorado’s restraining orders explicitly stated that police “shall” make an arrest when violations occur, Scalia said “a well-established tradition of police discretion has long coexisted with apparently mandatory arrest statutes.”
The decision echoed a 1981 ruling by the court that cited a “fundamental principle of American law that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”
In the wake of the Castle Rock decision, the National Organization for Women complained the court had “effectively given law enforcement a green light to ignore restraining orders.”
City: Court should ‘focus solely on the hours’ before murder
In the Prichard case, attorneys for the City of Bellevue note that the Iowa courts have also held that law enforcement personnel do not owe a “particularized duty” to protect individuals from harm and instead owe a general duty to the public.
The city argues that the Prichard family, in “an effort to avoid the clear effect of Castle Rock on this case,” is now attempting to link Christopher Prichard’s repeated violations of the no-contact order with Angela Prichard’s subsequent murder.
“The court must avoid plaintiffs’ efforts to conflate these events and keep its focus solely on the hours immediately leading up to Ms. Prichard’s death,” the city’s attorneys argue, noting there was no evidence that Angela Prichard contacted the police immediately before she was killed — and so there was nothing to “suggest that Mr. Prichard had an immediate plan to murder Ms. Prichard.”
Lawyers for the Prichard family argue the Castle Rock case is different from the Bellevue case in that Castle Rock police failed to enforce a restraining order after just one alleged violation, there was no allegation of cronyism in that case, and there was no arrest warrant that was being ignored by Castle Rock police.
Lawyers for the family also argue that the City of Bellevue has failed to comply with court-ordered discovery in the case and failed to turn over documents subject to the disclosure requirements of the Iowa Open Records Law.
“Under no circumstances should the court reward the defendants’ violation of court-ordered discovery by dismissing the complaint prior to the required disclosures,” attorneys for the family argue.
A trial in the case is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 15, 2025.
