Lincoln mother of injured cyclist sues chief Lancaster County sheriff’s deputy

In a suit filed Thursday, Tiarrah Moton’s attorney accused Chief Deputy Ben Houchin of driving his Dodge Ram pickup truck too fast for conditions on May 10, when he crashed into 9-year-old Janiece Moton near West Jennifer Street and Northwest Eighth Street at around 8:15 p.m. that evening.

Moton’s attorney, Vince Powers, also accused Houchin of failing to yield the right of way, failing to keep his truck under proper control and failing to keep a proper look out in the moments before the crash, which left Janiece hospitalized and diagnosed with multiple skull fractures, a brain bleed, a fractured shoulder, an injured knee and road rash on various parts of her body.

Houchin, who was off duty and driving his personal truck, told investigators he was driving around 20 mph in the moments before he struck Janiece, who was not wearing a helmet, according to the crash report filed in the incident.

The posted speed limit on West Jennifer is 25 mph.

Powers, a prominent attorney in Lincoln who has won costly injury verdicts in crashes before, said in Thursday’s filing that the Motons had incurred medical expenses of an “unknown” amount that are likely to continue to stack up.

And, Powers said, Janiece has suffered past, present and future “pain, inconvenience, humiliation, suffering, mental anguish and permanent loss of earning capacity.”

Powers didn’t specific an amount, but the family is seeking a judgement that will “fairly and justly compensate” the 9-year-old for her injuries and medical costs.

Houchin, who has not commented publicly on the crash, did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Friday. He nor his attorney had filed a response to the suit as of Friday afternoon.

Reached by phone in May, Houchin declined to comment on the crash itself, saying he wanted to keep his response to the incident “personal” and not conflate it with his role as chief deputy sheriff.

Thursday’s filing comes just over a month after the crash, which put one of Lancaster County’s top law enforcement officers under investigation, left the Motons in shock and shook Tiarrah Moton’s confidence in local law enforcement, she said then.

In the crash report, Lincoln Police Investigator Nicholas Vest said Houchin was driving his Ram 1500 east on West Jennifer Street when he glanced down at his radio as he proceeded through the road’s intersection with Northwest Eighth Street on Wednesday, crashing into Janiece, who was riding her bike south on Eighth Street.

The chief deputy, who told investigators he had looked down for a “split second” to change his radio station, told police the girl came out of nowhere and that he never saw her approaching the roadway, according to the crash report.

There are no stop signs on either side of the three-way intersection.

Nine days after the crash, the Police Department announced Houchin would not face criminal charges for his role in the collision.

Police don’t suspect drugs or alcohol played a role in the crash, Police Chief Teresa Ewins said. Investigators did not test Houchin for either drugs or alcohol, according to the crash report.

For Tiarrah Moton, the Police Department’s failure to give Houchin a field sobriety test — along with comments she heard from officers at the scene, who seemed to be “trying to make excuses for” Houchin — called into question law enforcement’s response to the collision, she said in May. 

The mother of five said, at first, she didn’t care that Houchin was a sheriff’s deputy. But by the end of last week, when she said she hadn’t heard an investigative update from the Police Department and hadn’t heard an apology from anyone at the sheriff’s office, her attitude had changed from understanding to angry.

“They promised a few phone calls that have still — today, two days later — have not been made,” she said then. “They have not kept those promises.”

A week after the crash, when LPD announced Houchin would not be cited, Sgt. Chris Vollmer, a department spokesman, said that “efforts to contact the mother of the child by our staff have been made and are documented in our case file.” He did not say whether police had actually spoken to Moton since the crash.

Police sought video evidence as part of their investigation, Vollmer said, but ultimately didn’t find any. Vollmer said many residents who utilize Ring-style doorbell cameras dial back the sensitivity to avoid the cameras being tripped every time a car drives by.

“As a parent myself, I cannot imagine the distress this has caused for the child’s parents and family,” Wagner said. “I know that this event has also been difficult for Chief Deputy Houchin, who also has young children of his own.”