CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The attorney representing the family of John Curtis Lucas, the man who was run over and killed by a Kanawha County ambulance this month, said the driver could face criminal charges after an ongoing investigation is complete.
Attorney Scott Summers was a guest Wednesday on MetroNews “Midday.”
Summers said he sat down with Kanawha County Prosecuting Attorney Debra Rusnak Tuesday and was shown a 35-minute video of the early-morning deadly collision.
Early statements surrounding the Elkview incident suggested that Lucas, 45, may have been lurking around the station and was holding a knife. Summers said otherwise.
“At no time, ever, has John Lucas threatened anyone with any sort of weapon,” Summers said. “He certainly doesn’t chase them; he certainly doesn’t attempt to attack them. In fact, when he was hit, and when he was run over, he appeared to have nothing in his hand.”
Summers said that video showed Lucas picking up something off the ground prior to the incident.
“We don’t know what it is, something he picked up in the roadway 15 minutes before he was run over and killed, but even at that point, there’s no aggressive action. There’s no indication that John Lucas meant any harm to those two ladies.”
Video shows Lucas running in front of the ambulance in the Elkview area in the early morning hours of April 16. The ambulance stops and then goes forward, hitting Curtis. His body was dragged for two miles on U.S. Route 119 as the ambulance crew reported hearing screaming underneath the vehicle.
Summers said video showed the two-member female medic crew never went into the hospital station before running over Lucas, as they had just returned to the station.
An attorney of 30 years, Summers expressed frustration about why the ambulance driver was not charged immediately.
“You see a man run down in the middle of the street, and the most common reaction is, ‘well, I’d be under the jail at this point. Why aren’t these people arrested?'” Summers said. “My personal opinion is there’s probably only one of those occupants that has any real criminal culpability. There could have been arrests made that night, and I think, personal opinion, that those charges would have stuck.”
The ambulance driver could have been arrested that evening with misdemeanor charges related to involuntary manslaughter, Summers said. He went on to say he believes there is significant evidence for the driver to be charged for a serious crime.
The biggest question, Summers said, is what the ambulance crew was thinking.
“We now know exactly what happened, we’re never probably going to know why it happened,” Summers said. “There’s misconceptions from the beginning. The biggest one is, John wasn’t doing anything threatening to anyone.”
Summers said he’s been a friend over the Lucas family for many years. He said he doesn’t buy into the narrative that the ambulance crew was scared of Lucas.
“I don’t believe for a second that there was any real fear of John from the occupants of that vehicle,” Summers said. “Their words say one thing, their actions say something different.”
Summers said many errors were made during the tragic 35-minute sequence.
“One thing that we have learned for certain is there were multiple failures by multiple people along this entire trajectory of this case,” Summers said. “That if any one of them had not been a failure, John Lucas likely would be alive today.”
“They have an EMS crew, that, for whatever reason, made a choice to run over him, and then keep going,” Summers continued. “Once they thought he was under the ambulance, they continued to keep going. Either there was a horrible failure in training, or there was a horrible disregard for that training.”
Summers said more than 1700 people attended Lucas’ funeral. He asked for people to keep the Lucas family in their thoughts and prayers.
While he appreciated the support that people have shown the family, Summers cautioned against misinformation spread on social media about the case.
“Please stop all the sensationalization about what’s out there, speculating as to what’s out there,” Summers said. “Please stop quoting secret sources who talk about what’s on videos that some secret source told you about. Nobody knows what’s on it [the video] except for the prosecutor, the people who were there, the family, and me. If it doesn’t come from one of us, consider the source.”
Rusnak called for patience in a news conference last week as the investigation is conducted. She said the investigation includes over 250 pieces of evidence and added that the initial reports of the deadly collision did not match what video showed.
Protestors have gathered in front of the Kanawha County Courthouse and Public Safety buildings this week, holding signs that read “Justice for John.”