Covington 'DUI cop' tried to pull driver out through the window. Now he's being sued
A Covington police officer, who officials say specializes in drunk driving arrests, is facing his fifth federal lawsuit, this time over allegations that he used excessive force while arresting a Cincinnati man during a traffic stop.
Damien Conner, 38, is suing the city of Covington and Officer Doug Ullrich on claims including excessive use of force, battery, assault, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Conner is seeking a jury trial in federal court in Covington, as well as damages and attorney's fees.
According to the lawsuit, Conner was headed to work on Interstate 75 on the evening of Sept. 23 when Ullrich pulled him over for using a phone while driving.
After running the man's information, which the lawsuit says Conner gave willingly, Ullrich returned to the stopped car and asked Conner whether he carried a gun.
More: UC student with no criminal convictions sues Trump administration over revoked visa
When Conner declined to answer the officer's questions, Ullrich ordered him to remove his seatbelt and exit the vehicle, body camera footage of the incident shows.
'I don't want to have to rip you out of the car and take you to jail,' Ullrich said.
Conner tried to keep his door shut after officers attempted to open it, and Ullrich placed Conner in handcuffs while the man was still seated. Ullrich and another officer then tried to pull Conner through the driver's side window while Conner was seatbelted in.
Conner pleaded with the officers to open the car door, saying that he was being hurt by the officers' attempts to pull him through the window.
'Why are you doing this to me?' Conner asked. The officers then opened Conner's door and cut his seatbelt to remove him from the vehicle.
While escorting Conner to a police cruiser, Ullrich said that Conner was being arrested for refusing to exit his car and because the man's vehicle 'stinks like weed.' Conner denied smoking marijuana, saying his job at the railroad wouldn't allow it.
The lawsuit states, 'there was no finding of fact that (Conner) possessed marijuana.' The officers did find a handgun inside a small green bag in the car, but Conner was not slapped with any firearm-related charges.
In the body camera video, Ullrich told another officer he became concerned once Conner refused to answer questions about carrying a gun.
Conner was charged in Kenton County District Court with resisting arrest, obstructing an emergency responder and using a phone while driving. He was also charged with keeping an antibiotic pill outside its proper container.
Court records show the charges were dismissed after Conner completed a judicial diversion program.
'What began as a routine traffic stop for allegedly using a mobile device while driving quickly escalated into an ordeal of unnecessary violence and misconduct,' Jamir Davis, Conner's attorney, said in a statement. 'Damien Conner, a Black man and a law-abiding citizen, was pulled over on his way to work. He complied with every request – providing his license, registration, and insurance – yet was met with hostility and unwarranted aggression.'
In a statement, the city of Covington said Conner was lawfully ordered multiple times to exit his vehicle after refusing to answer questions about whether he was carrying a firearm.
'The City is committed to defending its officers who engage in lawful actions,' the statement reads. 'In this case, the legal precedent established by the United States Supreme Court nearly 50 years ago is clear: Law enforcement officers have the right to order individuals to exit their vehicles in the interest of officer safety.'
Court records show Conner's case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves, however, it remains unclear when the first hearing will take place.
During the closing arguments of an unrelated trial in early April, Kenton County Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Sanders described Ullrich as the department's 'DUI cop,' or the go-to officer for intoxicated driving incidents.
Ullrich has been sued in federal court five times since June 2021, though the officer has not been found liable for any alleged conduct to date, court records show. The lawsuits each stemmed from Ullrich's involvement in traffic stops.
Davis, the attorney representing Conner, also represented another of the people who sued Ullrich. That lawsuit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge David Bunning, who awarded attorney's fees to the city because several of the lawsuit's claims were frivolous.
Bunning even ordered that Davis be partially on the hook for attorney's fees after finding Davis' failure to concede a claim, despite conclusive proof refuting specific allegations, was 'vexatious conduct and needlessly increased the costs of litigation.'
The judge also sanctioned Davis for pursuing a 'baseless and frivolous' claim that officers violated his client's constitutional rights in asking for his identification during a traffic stop and for refusing to offer evidence for a racial discrimination allegation against Covington police.
"I've never been sanctioned before," Davis said, adding that he plans to appeal the court's ruling against him. He also said officials aligned with the department are using the sanctions to try to discredit him and his clients.
He said the judge presiding over the earlier civil case did not understand the arguments he presented and described the situation as "very, very unfortunate." Court records show Davis' client is seeking an appeal of Bunning's judgment dismissing the claims.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Covington defends 'DUI cop' facing 5th lawsuit over traffic stop
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Chicago Tribune
4 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Today in Chicago History: ‘The Sandberg Game' rocks Wrigley Field
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on June 23, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) Chicago's history with hosting Democratic and Republican conventions dates back to 18601888: Frederick Douglass spoke at the Republican National Convention in Chicago's Auditorium Theatre. He received one vote from Kentucky in the fourth ballot — making him the first Black person nominated for president. 1895: A Chicago Colts game against Cleveland was interrupted after the third inning so the entire team could be arrested for violating laws banning baseball games on Sunday. While a West Side Grounds crowd of 10,000 fans waited, the players were marched into the clubhouse where they signed $100 bail bonds. They then returned to the field to finish a 13-4 victory. 1930: Future Chicago Cubs Hall of Famer Hack Wilson hit for the cycle against the Philadelphia Phillies. Vintage Chicago Tribune: Chicago Cubs who have hit for the cycle Wilson drove in a single-season record of 191 runs during the 1930 season, hit his 22nd home run of the year into right field in the first inning, then picked up a triple, double and two singles. 1960: Ground was broken on a 51-acre site in Elk Grove Village, which was just 5 miles away from O'Hare International Airport, for United Airlines' headquarters and training schools. United remained at the location until its offices were moved in 2009 to Willis Tower. In August 2022, CloudHQ began demolition of the former United Airlines corporate headquarters in Mount Prospect, with plans to build a $2.5 billion data center campus. 1975: Chicago City Council passed 'Burke's Law,' an ordinance proposed by former 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke that outlawed nudity in massage parlors. The nickname was inspired by a popular television detective show from that time. Vintage Chicago Tribune: Pelé, Hamm, Beckham, Rapinoe, Messi and more. When soccer's big names came to play1976: The Chicago Sting beat the New York Cosmos, in front of 28,000 fans. It was soccer star Pelé's last match at Soldier Field. 1984: 'The Sandberg Game.' Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg hit a pair of late-inning, game-tying home runs off St. Louis Cardinals closer Bruce Sutter in the Cubs' 12-11, 11-inning win before a crowd of 38,079 at Wrigley Field. It signaled his rise to stardom — setting the second baseman on a course that would earn him the National League Most Valuable Player Award. The wild, comeback win gave notice to the rest of America that the 1984 Cubs were for real despite a 39-year World Series drought and not a single championship since 1908. That game ignited an unforgettable summer run that ended with a postseason collapse in San Diego, only one game shy of the World Series. What to know about the Chicago Bears' possible move to Arlington Heights — or a domed stadium on the lakefront2000: Churchill Downs Inc. bought Arlington Park for a reported $71 million. Arlington closed its gates on Sept. 25, 2021. The Bears finalized a deal to buy the site in February 2023. Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past.
Chicago Tribune
4 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Today in History: Frederick Douglass becomes the first Black candidate nominated for president
Today is Monday, June 23, the 174th day of 2025. There are 191 days left in the year. Today in history: On June 23, 1888, abolitionist Frederick Douglass received one vote from the Kentucky delegation at the Republican convention in Chicago, making him the first Black candidate to have his name placed in nomination for U.S. president. Vintage Chicago Tribune: How Chicago became the go-to city for political conventionsAlso on this date: In 1931, aviators Wiley Post and Harold Gatty took off from Roosevelt Field in New York on an around-the-world flight that lasted eight days and 15 hours. In 1947, the Senate joined the House in overriding President Harry S. Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act, designed to limit the power of organized labor. In 1956, Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected president of Egypt. In 1969, Warren E. Burger was sworn in as chief justice of the United States by his predecessor, Earl Warren. In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed into law the Education Amendments of 1972, including Title IX, which barred discrimination on the basis of sex for 'any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.' In 1985, all 329 people on an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland after a bomb planted by Sikh separatists exploded onboard. In 1992, mob boss John Gotti was sentenced to life after being found guilty of murder, racketeering and other charges. (Gotti would die in prison in 2002.) In 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union after a bitterly divisive referendum campaign, toppling Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the drive to remain in the bloc. In 2020, the Louisville police department fired an officer involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor more than three months earlier, saying Brett Hankison showed 'extreme indifference to the value of human life' when he fired 10 rounds into her apartment. In 2022, in a major expansion of gun rights, the Supreme Court said Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. Today's Birthdays: Author Richard Bach is 89. Computer scientist Vint Cerf is 82. Actor Bryan Brown is 78. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is 77. Musician Glenn Danzig is 70. Former 'American Idol' judge Randy Jackson is 69. Actor Frances McDormand is 68. Golf Hall of Famer Colin Montgomerie is 62. Actor Selma Blair is 53. French soccer manager and former player Zinedine Zidane is 53. Actor Joel Edgerton is 51. Singer-songwriter Jason Mraz is 48. Rapper Memphis Bleek is 47. Football Hall of Famer LaDainian Tomlinson is 46. Actor Melissa Rauch ('The Big Bang Theory') is 45.
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
My sister's cold case
I am staring at the man accused of raping and murdering my sister, Vickie, in August 1979. She was 28. I can see him, but he can't see me. We are connected by video. He is dressed in an orange jumpsuit, sitting in a Maryland jailhouse holding room waiting for his bail hearing to begin. I am alone in a hotel room, on a business trip to New York. I am taken aback by his appearance. He was 18 in 1979. Now 62, he looks years older, agitated, eyes darting. He is Black — like me, like Vickie. I can feel my chest tightening, sweat accumulating on my forehead. Vickie's death left me with my own boogeyman. A faceless presence never far from my side. I saw real and imagined threats everywhere. My life was bifurcated into the before and the after. I lugged around survivor's baggage — sorrow, guilt and fear. And now there he is: The boogeyman has a face and a name: Andre Taylor. And, most important, genetic markers. He left behind DNA when he brutally raped Vickie, shot her in the head and left her body alongside a rural road in Charles County, Md. For four decades, the police made no arrests. Her killing added to the shocking number of unsolved murdered or missing Black women and girls in the U.S. My younger sister, Kay, now a retired California deputy sheriff, kept pushing for answers. I chose instead to focus on supporting Vickie's son, who was 8 at the time of her death, on raising money for the Vickie Belk Scholarship Foundation launched by our family church and on speaking out against gun violence. Then in mid-2023, the combination of enhanced DNA technology, Kay's determination and new leadership in the Charles County Sheriff's Department and the Maryland state attorney's office, there was a major break in the case. A DNA sample lifted from Vickie's clothing matched a profile in the national database. At the time, Taylor was living in a Washington, D.C., convalescent home. One of his legs had been amputated and he was using a wheelchair. He had no known relationship with Vickie. What he did have was a long, violent criminal record, and jail time. When the DNA match was confirmed, he was indicted and arrested. Which brought us to the bail hearing. Memories rush back. The last time I saw Vickie was on my wedding day. She was standing next to me at the altar in a blue maid-of-honor dress and matching hat. Three weeks later, I would be back at the same altar, sobbing over her lifeless body lying in a casket. She was wearing the same blue dress. For weeks, unopened wedding presents stayed stacked in the corner of our house. I listen as the public defender explains why the judge should grant Taylor bail. A flicker of compassion moves me. I spent years working for criminal justice reform. I know the system often fails poor people, especially those with disabilities and communities of color. I've been a strong public advocate of restorative justice and a critic of mass incarceration. 'Judge, look at him,' the public defender says. 'He's not going anywhere. He's not a flight risk.' I push aside any thoughts of compassion when the prosecutor shares Taylor's version of how his DNA got on Vickie's clothing. He claimed that a friend named Mikey showed up at his house with a hysterical Vickie in the backseat of his car. Taylor's story was that she begged for her life, offering to have sex if they would just let her go. He said Mikey left with Vickie, alive, and when he asked later, Mikey told him: 'Well man, you know I had to do what I had to do.' I start to weep. The prosecutor jumps in, noting the defensive wounds on Vickie's body as she fought for her life and lost, the presence of Taylor's DNA on her panties. And then this: When Taylor was arrested, the prosecutor says, he told officers he would have enlisted his brothers to help him flee if he'd known the police were coming for him. 'He is a flight risk and should be held without bail,' the prosecutor insists. 'Bail denied!' the judge thunders. :: A year and half later, in summer 2024, I travel east from California again, this time for Taylor's trial. Every day our family and friends from the old neighborhood and beyond are in the Maryland courtroom or Zooming in. But all their love and support isn't enough to lessen my dread of what will come. Jury selection is a reminder of how much violence is ingrained in American life. The judge asks the diverse pool of nearly 100 prospective jurors to stand if they know someone who was wounded or killed by gun violence. Only five remained seated. When he asks about sexual violence, a majority of the women stand. Many accept the judge's offer to be excused if they feel they can't be impartial. I begin to worry if there will be any women left to serve. Finally, the prosecution and defense agree on four women and nine men (including one alternate). They are mostly folks of color. The hallways are cleared each morning as Taylor is wheeled into court. In person, he seems small, innocuous. I find myself wishing I knew how to hate better, but I come up empty. All I can muster is curiosity, loss and pain, wondering what had happened to him in his first 18 years of life. Kay is one of the first called to the witness stand by the prosecutor. She must formally identify Vickie in the crime scene photos. Several family members choose to leave the courtroom. I stay and watch as jurors gasp at the images or look away. Taylor sits motionless, as if the evidence has nothing to do with him. We hear emotional testimony from the man who'd found Vickie in the woods. Now a grandfather, he was 15, riding his bike near his home, when he saw her body. He had shared with the family how the image haunted him for years. When the defense begins, I start directing my bitterness less at Taylor and more at his lawyers. It's a two-person team headed by the chief public defender, a Black woman, with a white woman in the second chair. I know they are doing their jobs, but their competency turns my stomach and heart inside out. Taylor's lawyer asks the medical examiner who did the original autopsy if it is possible that Vickie committed suicide or if her blunt vaginal injuries could be from consensual sex. Absolutely not, the medical examiner says. She stands by her assessment that Vickie's death was a homicide, and that she was violently sexually assaulted. Next Taylor's lawyers take a page from the O.J. Simpson playbook and spend hours trying to dispute the collection and validity of the DNA evidence. But in the end, Taylor's own words convict him. The prosecution plays the entire two-hour video of his arrest interview. For almost 60 minutes, he denies having any contact with Vickie, and then he admits to what the prosecutors will call 'actions that amounted to rape.' 'I had sex with her to quiet her down. She was nicely dressed with nice expensive shoes. I remember those shoes. Dressed like she worked in an office or something.' He deadpans, 'She was alive when I was done with her.' In the closing argument, the prosecutor connects the dots. There was no Mikey. All the evidence points to the fact that Vickie was abducted, taken to the woods a few miles from where Taylor lived, sexually assaulted and murdered. The DNA implicates Taylor and Taylor alone. It takes the jury two hours to come back with a verdict: guilty. As they file out of the courtroom, several of them make eye contact. I silently mouth 'thank you.' :: A month later, I return to the courtroom for Taylor's sentencing. Family members are given the opportunity to make statements. We are instructed to direct our comments to the judge, not Taylor. Vickie's son speaks first. I keep my remarks short, reminding the court of the brutality of the crime, how scared Vickie must have been, and how Taylor had shown no remorse for his actions. When it is my youngest sister's turn, she first apologizes to the judge for ignoring his instructions, then turns to Taylor, and says what I wish I had had the nerve to say: ' You are a piece of trash.' She accepts the judge's reprimand and leaves the courtroom. Taylor is sentenced to life in prison. 'My actions today won't bring Vickie back,' the judge says. 'It probably won't even provide closure. But I hope it will bring you some sense of justice and peace.' Maybe one day it will. But not this day. I leave the courtroom feeling the loss of a sister — no justice, no peace. Judy Belk, former president and chief executive of the California Wellness Foundation, is a frequent contributor to The Times. She is at work on a book of personal essays about racial justice and social change.
