Officers responding to a report of a security guard brandishing a gun at the Compare Foods grocery store in January of 2021 immediately encountered gunfire.
As one officer ducked outside, the other, Officer Wesley Rosenberger, moved about the store exchanging rounds before seeking refuge in an upstairs office.
When the manager, 20-year-old Luis Rodriguez, entered a door leading to the office, Rosenberger mistook a cell phone he had in his hand for a weapon and fired on him, striking him in the arm.
Almost three years later, he still lives with the physical and mental scars of being wounded.
“This incident has never left my mind, and it has changed my life forever,” said Rodriguez.
Rosenberger’s actions drew praise from the city’s top cop at the time.
“The officers acted with great bravery,” said then-Police Chief Michael Harrison, “They acted swiftly.”
But Attorney Billy Murphy says the officer’s response came up short.
“He fired shots in the beginning, but then he went upstairs to hide and there was a door downstairs,” said Murphy, “and unfortunately, Luis came through the door and without knowing if he was friend or foe, Officer Rosenberger shot him.”
As a matter of policy, the police department is not commenting on the lawsuit, but it did clear the officer during a Use of Force review following the shooting.
Whether the officer acted heroically or cowardly may yet be left to the courts to decide, but the case certainly raises questions over body-worn camera footage and how its interpretation still may be left up to the eye of the beholder.
