Lane County and a volunteer auxiliary group, the Lane County Sheriff Mounted Posse, were sued Tuesday over allegations of racial profiling, assault and civil rights violations.
According to his lawsuit, Keviantae Hill, who is Black, was visiting the Lane County Fair in 2023 when he was allegedly mistaken for a shooting suspect.
The lawsuit alleges Hill was approached and grabbed by former Lane County Sheriff Byron Trapp in his role as a member of the Mounted Posse, a volunteer group affiliated with the sheriff’s office. The group manages parking at the fair.
The shooting had occurred the day before and Hill, who was 20 and living in Portland at the time, had arrived in Eugene to visit friends that morning.
Trapp was accompanied by a sheriff’s deputy liaison to the Mounted Posse, Levi McKenny, who was at the time dressed as a member of the group and not in a law enforcement uniform. According to the lawsuit, one of them allegedly put their hand on their gun, and Hill fled.
According to the lawsuit, Eugene Police told the group that Hill wasn’t suspected of anything - but a posse member and private security guard chased him in a golf cart until he collapsed from an asthma attack in the parking lot of a nearby church. They allegedly nearly hit Hill with the golf cart, restrained him by kneeling on his back, and didn’t provide medical care when he vomited blood. They allegedly stopped restraining him when a bystander started recording.
The incident “invoked echoes of slave patrols and racial terror,” according to a statement released Tuesday by the Eugene Springfield NAACP.
“That such an incident could occur today, in the heart of our community, raises urgent questions about how Lane County
empowers, trains, and supervises individuals tasked with public safety, particularly when those individuals are volunteer auxiliaries carrying firearms,” the statement read.
Hill’s attorneys, Alicia LeDuc Montgomery and Jesse Merrithew, argued in the lawsuit that mounted posses have a racist, extremist past in Oregon and beyond. They argued allowing a quasi-police group to operate at the fair was reckless and irresponsible.
“The unconstitutional detention and use of force against Mr. Hill is the foreseeable result of this structure, and one that continues to place members of the public, particularly communities of color, at risk,” Hill’s attorneys wrote.
In addition to Lane County, Hill is suing the Lane County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse, the Lane County Fair Board, the private security company Iron Shield, former sheriff Byron Trapp, deputy Levi McKenny and posse member Steve Egeret.
The Lane County Sheriff’s Office said it could not comment on pending litigation. A spokesperson did confirm that the mounted posse will continue their usual duties providing parking support at the fair this week.
According to the group’s website, the Lane County Sheriff’s Mounted Posse has existed since the 1940s. It's currently a nonprofit and helps the county with search and rescue work, and participates in fairs and parades.
