CLAYTON, Mo. — A jilted police officer angry enough to want someone else to pay for the fact that he was shot and paralyzed in the line of duty beyond the prison sentence his shooter got?
Or a police officer whose bullet-resistant vest failed him, so he wants the company who made it to be held accountable?
Those are the different pictures attorneys painted of former Florissant Officer Michael Vernon Tuesday during opening statements of his civil trial against Safariland, the company that made his vest.
Vernon, now 42, was shot and paralyzed while responding to a burglary call in May 2012. This week, and his wife, Farrah, and their 7-year-old son, Karston, made the four-hour journey from Dresden, Tennessee, to attend the trial. The couple watched from the gallery Tuesday as Vernon's attorney, Kevin Carnie Jr., described Vernon's hardships to jurors.
"For a brief moment, every morning he wakes up, he relives the realization that he's trapped in his own body, he can't move, he's stuck," Carnie said.
Vernon sued Safariland – an international company with about 3,000 employees that makes ballistic equipment for police, military and federal agents – in 2013.
In his lawsuit, Vernon alleges the company does not talk about the importance of how the sides of the vest must overlap on the sides of an officer’s body or how many inches the panels should overlap in its user manual or as part of its own “Fit Right” program.
“That warning came three years too late,” Carnie said. “Mike Vernon was not given enough overlap on his vest or told that it was important.
“That’s why we’re here.”
Safariland lead council Michelle Corrigan Erickson told jurors that the company does not guarantee its vests can protect users from angled shots that strike the edges of their products – therefore it is not information included in the user manual. She also added how a representative from Ed Rohr Safety Products – a local distributor – recommended Vernon have 2 inches of overlap on the sides of his vest, and Vernon agreed to it.
“So even if it wasn’t in the manual, Officer Vernon had (the overlap), he had it,” Corrigan Erickson said.
She also stressed how jurors must determine if there was a defect in the product and whether that defect is what caused his injuries. In other words, was the vest defective and did the shot that penetrated it lead to his paralysis?
“If I were him, I would be angry,” she told jurors. “I would want somebody to pay. I would want redemption, I would want somebody to pay even though the shooter is paying for his crimes.
“You may feel emotional about this case, but your decision is just based on evidence: Is there a defect and did the defect cause the damages?”
Vernon’s attorney told jurors the first of three shots that struck Vernon that night pierced through the side of the vest, causing him to hunch over in pain. It ripped through his liver and lodged in his lung, collapsing it. As he hunched over, Carnie said a bullet struck his shoulder and traveled to his spine, paralyzing him. A third bullet struck his calf.
Corrigan Erickson painted an alternate theory about how the bullet that pierced the edge of Vernon’s vest struck him. She believes he was struck first in the top of his shoulder as he was likely taking cover from the shooter who had popped out of a dumpster in front of him, then fell backwards as he described, and the bullet that pierced the vest struck him while he was falling backwards or already on the ground due to its trajectory and angle. She demonstrated the theory by getting on her hands and knees in the courtroom before the jurors.
Corrigan Erickson also noted how the vest met all of the standards established by the National Institute of Justice – an arm of the Department of Justice.
"There is no such thing as a bulletproof vest," she said. "There is no body armor that can stop every bullet, shot from any angle, 100% of the time."
Vernon’s attorney argued a member of Safariland sits on the committee that establishes those standards for the NIJ.
The trial could take as long as two weeks.
Vernon and his wife, Farrah, are expected to take the stand.