Who Is Roy Oliver? Balch Springs Police Officer And Department Face Lawsuit Filed By Jordan Edwards’ Family

Dallas police officer Roy Oliver and his department are facing lawsuit filed by the family of Jordan Edwards, a black teen, who was shot dead by the officer April 29, according to reports Sunday. In the suit, the family accused Oliver of using excessive and deadly force and blamed the Balch Springs Police Department of providing inadequate training to the officer.

“There was no reason that any person in America — not just a black person — should ever have to bury their 15-year-old child who was doing everything right in life,” Jasmine Crockett, one of the family’s attorneys, said Sunday, according to the Associated Press (AP) that cited the lawsuit.

According to Crockett, the lawsuit was filed to preserve the legal rights of Edwards’ father, Odell Edwards. The family sought damages for Edwards’ wrongful death. It remained unclear how much money the family sought.

Oliver fatally shot 15-year-old Edwards when the latter left a party, where police were called in to inspect underage drinking. Edwards’ death was ruled as a homicide resulting from a rifle wound to the head. Following this, the officer was arrested on a murder charge.

According to the lawsuit, filed Friday, police should have known Oliver had “exhibited a pattern of escalating encounters with the public,” including a 2013 complaint by a prosecutor who said Oliver had an aggressive behavior and in a court used vulgar language, which made one prosecutor to send a young female intern out of the room. Oliver had appeared in the court for a driving while impaired (DWI) case, in which he received suspension.

The suit also held Balch Springs Police Chief Jonathan Haber and the department responsible for having “failed to provide adequate training to Oliver on appropriate methods and techniques to control situations similar to the one.”

“Oliver’s inadequate training resulted in the death of Edwards,” the lawsuit reportedly said.

Before becoming a police officer, Oliver was enlisted in the Army from March 2004 till March 2010, according to ABC affiliate WFAA. He joined the Balch Springs Police Department in July 2011 after passing the Peace Officer Licensing exam. In December 2013, he signed a document giving up 16 hours of sick time in accordance to the terms of his DWI suspension. He was ordered to complete training in anger management and training in courtroom demeanor and testimony.

Following Edwards’ death, the Balch Springs Police Department said was in the passenger seat of a car that was heading toward officers in an “aggressive manner.” However, police chief Haber corrected the statement saying, the video from the scene showed the car was “moving forward as the officers approached.” Edwards who was on the passenger seat of the car was struck by the bullet into head and pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Lee Merritt, a lawyer for the Edwards family, commended Haber for correcting the department’s original mistake.

“We’ve heard excuses before in the past: You know why it happens, because the dads aren’t present,” Merritt told the Dallas Morning News. “That excuse isn’t here. Or the kid was violent. That excuse isn’t present here.”

However, Meritt criticized the shooting saying the “lone motive they had for the murder was that the vehicle was being used as a weapon, and now that is no longer there.”

“There were no weapons involved; there was no aggressive behavior; these were not suspects,” Lee Merritt, a lawyer for the Edwards family, said at the time, according to the New York Times Jeff Fleener, Edwards’ high school football coach, praised Edwards as an athlete, a student and a friend.