Lawsuit against Clark County deputy claims excessive force used on Good Samaritan

In the moments after Erin Williams leapt to her death from Alvin Hill’s moving vehicle on Highway 7, she was struck by an oncoming pickup hauling a camper. The 23-year-old’s lifeless body lay in the middle of the state highway.

A few hundred feet away, a family cookout came to an abrupt halt as the spectators went to check out the commotion. John Kelloms was among the first of many people to arrive at the ghastly scene. Moments later, Hill returned, this time brandishing a pistol.

While most of Kelloms’s relatives retreated back to safety, Kelloms stayed and pleaded for the maniacal Hill to surrender the weapon. One relative stood nearby, his gun drawn and aimed at Hill. The complaint notes the deceased lay in the road, decapitated; a law enforcement official close to the case said Williams was not decapitated.

Kelloms spent some 20 minutes “building a relationship” with Hill and trying to defuse the situation. Then came the police sirens.

Kelloms is suing a Clark County deputy sheriff for his actions during the March 26, 2022, incident. In a lawsuit that sheds more light on the incident, which has been settled in criminal court, Kelloms claims that he was tasered, slammed around and wrongfully detained during the aftermath.

“Many deputies rolled up and came all around Kelloms and [Hill], screaming and yelling, and generally adding tension to a scene that was already fraught with tension,” notes the complaint, filed in Clark County Circuit Court by the Little Rock law offices of Sutter & Gillham.

Kelloms, who knelt alongside Hill in apparent prayer at the time police arrived, claims that officers were pointing their guns at him “nearly as much as [Hill].” The lawsuit paints various scenarios of what might have happened had Kelloms listened to officers’ commands — including the possibility that he would be shot in friendly fire.

Kelloms says he was able to talk Hill into handing him the weapon, which Kelloms took as he walked away from Hill.

A witness video shared with arkadelphian.com in the days after the incident shows two men kneeling before a lifeless body and surrounded by police officers, their weapons drawn and aimed in the direction of the two men. As Hill falls forward to the ground — presumably from being tasered from behind — Kelloms is seen walking away.

That’s when, according to the complaint, Lt. Robbie Plyler began “screaming commands” at Kelloms while other officers detained Hill.

Kelloms chucked Hill’s gun in the ditch. The video, which is not posted here due to its disturbing nature, shows Kelloms throw something that is soon picked up by an officer. The video ends soon after Kelloms makes a gesture to an officer following him.

The lawsuit picks up the course of events from there, saying that Plyler tasered Kelloms, “grabbed him and slammed him around, causing injuries, cuffed him and put him in a locked police car.”

The suit also alleges that Plyler filled out a police report that was “false in many respects and omitted most of the material facts … as well as claiming [Hill] dropped the gun because officers tased him.”

The suit goes on to note that Kelloms was “falsely charged” with obstructing governmental operations, charges that would later be dismissed by the prosecutor.

Sheriff Jason Watson is also named as a defendant because he “failed to train [Plyler] and provide appropriate resources,” the suit states, further alleging that the sheriff ratified Plyler’s conduct by taking no action despite the “extensive” criminal investigation, numerous witnesses, video and the use of force investigation.

Kelloms’s attorneys say that his 4th Amendment rights were violated.

The lawsuit, which seeks at least $500,000 in relief for damages, also names Clark County as a defendant.