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Strickland, an 18-year-old Durham resident, was fatally shot through the door of his Wilmington rental home Dec. 1, 2006, as he reached to open the door for deputies. New Hanover County Sheriff's Deputy Christopher Long has said he mistook the sound of a battering ram for gunshots being fired from inside the home.
Kathy Strickland, Peyton's mother, said her family filed the lawsuit in the hope of preventing another tragedy like her son's death.
"This lawsuit is important for every family that has a student attending college in Wilmington," she said.
The lawsuit was filed with the state Industrial Commission, which handles claims against state agencies. The suit targets only UNC-Wilmington and its police department for what the family calls a "sloppy, hasty and overzealous" investigation. The family settled out of court with the county and its Sheriff's Department in February for $2.45 million and started a charitable foundation in Peyton's name. Any damages collected in this lawsuit would augment that fund, Kathy Strickland said.
In the complaint, Strickland's lawyers said that UNCW police's search warrant application is riddled with errors, which inappropriately led deputies to fear for their lives during the raid of Strickland's house.
A spokeswoman for UNCW said university officials had yet to see the complaint and could not comment.
The university police enlisted the New Hanover sheriff's SWAT team to help search Strickland's home that night, saying that the visit would be "extraordinarily dangerous." Strickland and two other young men were suspects in a robbery and assault on a UNCW student weeks before.
UNCW police had been alarmed by photos they'd found on the Facebook Web site of Ryan Mills, another suspect who posted pictures on the site posing with guns. Mills did not live with Strickland; Mills has said the photos were a prank and that he didn't own or possess any of those guns.
According to the complaint, the search warrant also misrepresents the actual Playstation 3 robbery and assault UNCW police were investigating. The search warrant says Justin Raines, the UNCW student robbed, was beaten by two subjects; not one as he reported. The search warrant also says that Raines said he was followed by the subjects out of a Wal-Mart; Raines had told the officer he didn't remember being followed. At a briefing before the raid, UNCW officers told sheriff's deputies that Peyton Strickland was a gang member; Peyton's family disputes that.
The Stricklands blame these errors and the pre-raid briefing of deputies for Peyton Strickland's death.
According to the complaint, Long told the SBI agent "he was thinking the worst, flashing back in his mind" to what he had been told at the briefing about the danger that awaited them at Strickland's house.
mandy.locke@newsobserver.com or 919-829-8927
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