On a Sunday evening in Rapid City, South Dakota, what began as a walk to settle a large meal ended in tragedy for 22-year-old Christopher Javier Capps. On May 2, 2010, the young man, a member of the Lakota Sioux tribe, sustained multiple gunshot wounds and later died at Rapid City Regional Hospital. The shots were fired by Pennington County Sheriff's Deputy David Olson, a nearly five-year veteran of the department.
The events leading to the fatal encounter are disputed.
According to the deputy's account, he was responding to a report of an assault and saw Capps being pursued by another man. Olson claimed that Capps then changed direction and charged at him with a knife, prompting him to open fire. However, Capps's family vehemently contests this version of events, stating that their son was unarmed and was actually seeking safety from people who had been chasing him. An autopsy later revealed that one of the five bullets that struck Capps entered through his back, which his family's legal representation argued was evidence that he was moving away from the officer. No weapon was found at the scene.
In the wake of his death, Christopher's parents, Jerry and Jaylene Capps, described their only child as an outgoing and unassuming young man who was excited about his future. A 2006 graduate of Stevens High School, he had been accepted to the University of South Dakota – Vermillion, where he planned to study computer animation. His parents insisted that allegations of him attempting to steal a bicycle were false, pointing out that he owned a new, expensive touring bike. They believed their son was wrongfully killed and announced their intention to file a wrongful death lawsuit.
The state Division of Criminal Investigation and the attorney general cleared Deputy Olson of any wrongdoing in the shooting. However, a federal appeals court later ruled that the officer's claim of qualified immunity was questionable due to the disputed facts of the case. The court found that if the jury were to believe the Capps family's account, the use of deadly force would have been a violation of Christopher's constitutional rights. This ruling allowed the family's lawsuit against Deputy Olson to proceed to trial.
