A civil lawsuit stemming from the 2018 shooting death of an 18-year-old by a police officer working private security in the Shaw neighborhood appears to be headed for settlement soon.
Almost nine years ago, VonDerrit Myers Jr. was killed in the Shaw neighborhood of St. Louis city by Jason Flanery, a St. Louis city police officer who was working a private security job in the neighborhood.
The shooting occurred in October 2014, only two months after Michael Brown was killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson. Though not to the same extent as the shooting death of Brown, Myers’ killing and the lack of criminal charges against Flanery received national media attention and set off protests as well as accusations of a cover-up.
Earlier that evening, Flanery chased a group of young men, though it's unclear what crime he suspected them of committing. When Flanery saw Myers and three other young men a little after 7 p.m. walking near Shaw Boulevard, he thought they were the same cohort. Flanery, who was wearing his police uniform, announced himself as a police officer. Myers and his companions fled.
Myers allegedly grabbed his waistband as he ran. Flanery opened fire, killing the teen across Klemm Street from the Shaw Market, where Myers had purchased a sandwich earlier in the night.
Flanery said that Myers had fired at him first. A weapon was recovered near Myers and, according to a report compiled by the office of then-Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, ballistics evidence matched it to shell casings recovered at the scene.
Notably, despite Flanery having been hired to work private security by the Flora Place Community Improvement District, the shooting occurred six blocks from Flora.
"He was well outside of Flora Place," says attorney Jerryl Christmas, who represents Myers' parents in their wrongful death lawsuit. "If he had stayed on Flora Place this never would have happened."
Flanery left the force about two years after the shooting in the wake of crashing a police vehicle while intoxicated.
Myers’ shooting presaged a wider debate in the city about neighborhoods' use of private policing, a debate that has only grown louder in recent months and years. In a 2022 deepdive on the topic in ProPublica, Stanford University criminal law professor David Sklansky was quoted as saying that private policing "represents a retreat" from the ideal that police are a public good and protect everyone equally.
Three years prior to that story, Flanery himself said in a 2019 deposition that Flora Place hired GCI "to keep the crime that's in Shaw neighborhood as far away from the Flora Place neighborhood as they can."
Myers' parents, VonDerrit Myers Sr. and Syreeta Myers, filed their suit in February 2018, naming Flanery, the Flora Place Community Improvement District and GCI Security as defendants.
According to the suit, Flanery fired at Myers eight times, with six of the bullets striking him on his back side.
"VonDerrit posed no threat to Flanery or the public when he was gunned down. The killing was therefore unjustified, willful and reckless," the suit reads.
More than five years after the suit was originally filed, it appears to be on the verge of settlement, meaning that a scheduled October jury trial will not happen.
Earlier this month, attorneys for both the Myers family and the defendants Flanery and GCI Security filed a motion to approve a proposed agreed-upon settlement. The Flora Place Community Improvement District has since been dismissed from the suit by Judge Elizabeth Hogan.
The court filings are light on specifics, saying only that both parties have reached a "confidential settlement agreement" and are asking Judge Hogan to approve it.
"I'm glad that it is coming to an end. There is no amount of money that will replace the loss that VonDerrit Sr. and Syreeta suffered," Christmas tells the RFT. "It's very unfortunate how much additional suffering they had to go through with the legal fight involved in this. GCI and Flora Place fought this family hard, causing so much additional suffering to these parents."
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