EAST ST. LOUIS – While former Alton police officer Ashley Roever defends criminal charges from a crash that killed Toshorn Napper Jr., police chiefs and tavern owners defend a civil suit claiming they caused it too.
Napper’s mother Terri Coleman-Napper claims Tiny’s Pub in Columbia and Good Times Saloon in Dupo intoxicated Roever and police from Dupo and East Carondelet let her keep driving.
Roever’s vehicle struck Napper’s vehicle from behind at 2 a.m. on Nov. 14, 2020, while he waited for a train to pass on Route 3 in Sauget.
Grand jurors indicted Roever in March on charges of aggravated driving under the influence causing accidental death.
In November, attorneys Allison Stenger and Michael Singer of Richmond Heights, Mo. filed suit for the estate in St. Clair County circuit court.
Stenger wrote that under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the villages, officers and chiefs deprived Napper of his right to life.
She and Singer named Roever as a defendant, claiming she was intoxicated at more than three times the legal limit.
They named Alton police chief Marcos Pulido and the city as defendants, claiming Roever acted under color of law in the course and scope of her employment.
They named Dupo village, patrolman Cameron Cleveland, and sergeant Jason Cooper as defendants, along with former chief Kevin Smith at a Florida address.
They named East Carondelet village, police chief Michael Dennis, and two or more unidentified officers as defendants.
Stenger wrote that officers explicitly or implicitly communicated that Roever wouldn’t be arrested or punished.
Stenger described conduct of the officers as official sanction of illegal activity.
She and Singer also named the taverns as defendants along with owners Donald Voelker of Tiny’s Pub and Mark Packer of Good Times.
According to the lawsuit, Roever consumed numerous beverages at Tiny’s Pub and left after midnight to drive to Good Times.
Officers in Dupo or East Carondelet received a dispatch about a sport utility vehicle, after observers reported to police that the driver nearly caused a head on collision and failed to stay in her lanes.
Patrolman Cleveland observed the vehicle crossing a line and pulled it over near Good Times. East Carondelet officers arrived.
Roever allegedly advised officers that she consumed alcoholic beverages, she texted while driving, and she was going to meet friends at Good Times.
Officers performed no sobriety tests.
They allegedly directed a sober patron to move her vehicle to Good Times and allowed Roever to go inside.
Roever allegedly consumed additional beverages, left, and drove until she collided with Napper’s vehicle.
Napper left surviving his mother, father Toshorn Napper Sr., brothers Jonte, TraVeon, and LaDarius Napper, and sister Unay Brown.
The family alleges they have suffered pecuniary damages including companionship, guidance, attention, instruction, and other elements of consortium.
Toshorn Jr. had no children and never married.
The estate also sued Sauget village, but for a different reason.
Stenger wrote that Sauget police failed to promptly and safely remove the body and failed to employ reasonable methods to locate and notify the family.
She wrote that they recklessly disregarded the probability that failure to reverently handle the body would cause distress to next of kin.
Alton counsel Joseph Bleyer of Marion removed the complaint to U.S. district court on Dec. 16, asserting that constitutional claims belonged there.
The court clerk randomly assigned Chief District Judge Nancy Rosenstengel.
David Berwin of St. Louis represents Dupo.
Charles Pierce of Belleville represents East Carondelet.
Thomas Ysursa of Belleville represents Sauget.
John Cunningham and Daniel Hasenstab of Belleville represent Tiny’s Pub.
As of Dec. 27, the docket showed no counsel for Roever or Good Times.