John Randall Veach, 39, was killed on December 30, 2015, in the parking lot of a Kum & Go gas station in Rawlins, Wyoming, after an encounter with officers from the Rawlins Police Department. He was described in reporting and court-related accounts as a White male.
Accounts tied to the later civil case say police were dispatched to the gas station after a report that Veach was attempting to sell marijuana in the lot.
In the cold and wind of a winter night, officers approached his pickup to question him; the version summarized in legal filings and news coverage is that, as the stop unfolded, Veach tried to drive away and the officers opened fire. He was shot by Sgt. Jared Frakes and Officer Joe Balestrieri, and he was transported by ambulance but did not survive.
In the wake of the shooting, the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation was brought in to conduct an independent investigation, and an outside prosecutor reviewed the case. Public reporting on that review states that Uinta County Attorney Loretta Howieson Gerrard concluded the shooting was justified, and the officers were not criminally charged. In other words, there were no arrests of any suspect in connection with Veach’s death; the only identified shooters were the two officers, and prosecutors did not pursue criminal counts against them.
But the story did not end when the criminal review closed. Veach’s family and estate filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Rawlins and the two officers, portraying the shooting as an unjustified killing of an unarmed man and alleging constitutional violations and systemic failures in training, supervision, and discipline. The city and its officers disputed those claims in court, while the case drew renewed attention locally as residents argued over what accountability should look like when an officer uses deadly force.
Years later, the civil case concluded with a settlement reported at $925,000, a figure that underscored how costly—financially and emotionally—the episode remained for the community and for Veach’s survivors. The settlement resolved the lawsuit, but it did not convert into criminal prosecutions: no trial, no conviction, and no booking photo—only an official finding that cleared the officers criminally, alongside a civil payout that signaled how fiercely the shooting would continue to be contested in public memory.
