On the night of January 31, 2021, a 20-year-old male from Louisville, Kentucky, named Eric Steven Kessler, died after being shot by a Bullitt County Sheriff's deputy. The events leading to his death began when deputies responded to a call about a man asleep in a car that was stopped in the middle of a road.
Upon arrival, deputies found Kessler unconscious in the driver's seat of his vehicle.
After several minutes of trying to wake him by knocking on the window, the deputies decided to break the glass. This action startled Kessler, who then awoke to a confusing and chaotic scene. With deputies surrounding his car, he attempted to drive away. In the process, his vehicle moved backward, striking a police cruiser, before he drove forward.
As Kessler was driving away from the scene, Deputy Nicholas Hibbs fired his weapon multiple times, striking Kessler in the back of the head and killing him. Body camera footage of the incident became a central piece of evidence in the subsequent investigation and a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Kessler's family.
The family's lawsuit alleged that the deputies' actions were reckless and that Kessler was not a threat when he was shot. They maintained that he was disoriented and trying to escape a frightening situation. Conversely, the sheriff's office initially claimed that Kessler had tried to run over a deputy, a claim the family's attorney argued was contradicted by the body camera footage.
Following the shooting, the Kentucky State Police conducted an investigation into the incident. In April 2022, it was reported that the case would be presented to a Bullitt County grand jury to determine if criminal charges would be filed against Deputy Hibbs. However, there have been no publicly available reports on the outcome of the grand jury's decision, and therefore no information on whether any arrests were made or charges were filed against the deputy. Deputy Hibbs remained employed by the sheriff's office during the investigation. A wrongful death lawsuit filed by Kessler's family against the Bullitt County Sheriff's Office and the deputies involved remains ongoing.
