A Lander man who accused local police of using excessive force during an arrest last fall has filed a lawsuit against the city, the department, and several officers, alleging that police violated his civil rights by roughly handcuffing and pepper spraying him.
Two Lander Police Department officers arrested Kayvon Powell in September 2024 after stopping him in his car for alleged reckless driving — a charge Powell denied and was never found guilty of.
The encounter quickly devolved into a shouting match after Powell stated that he was unable to roll down his broken window, and Sgt. Ron Wells opened Powell’s car door without permission.
After an increasingly heated exchange in which Powell stated that he feared for his life, Wells and another officer arrested him.
His lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, focuses primarily on the officers’ use of pepper spray during the arrest, which his lawyers claim violated Powell’s civil rights against excessive and unreasonable force.
For an investigation published in June, WyoFile looked into Powell’s allegations of abuse by officers, as well as his subsequent trial on charges of interfering with a police officer.
During Powell’s trial in April, a Fremont County judge described Wells as “out of line, absolutely 100% out of line,” during his arrest. It was a rare reprimand from a Wyoming judge to a police officer.
Kelly Waugh, Lander’s interim police chief, and a city official declined to comment on the lawsuit. “Public comment at this time could compromise the City’s legal position and privileged communications,” they wrote in a prepared statement.
In an interview with WyoFile this summer, Waugh stated that Wells had “taken full ownership that he did not handle himself appropriately that day.” However, Waugh declined to say whether Wells faced any disciplinary proceedings, instead stating that as chief, he was impressed by the sergeant’s willingness to accept responsibility for his actions.
Powell’s attorneys argue that the officers’ use of pepper spray did not violate Lander Police Department policy at the time. The lawsuit calls the policy “completely inadequate, improper, and unconstitutional.”
Wells and another officer, Casey Tadewald, eventually arrested Powell on suspicion of interfering with a police officer after he refused to show Wells his identification.
A Fremont County jury later found Powell guilty of the misdemeanor charge of interference. Prior to the trial, prosecutors dropped a charge of reckless driving. Powell has denied the allegation.
Powell is appealing his interference conviction. He is represented by a public defender in that case, and the two cases will proceed independently.
During the arrest, body camera footage shows officers roughing up Powell, despite his claim that he did not resist, as they remove him from his car, handcuff him, and transport him to a police cruiser. Powell’s attorneys claim in the lawsuit that he followed the officers’ orders throughout the arrest and got into the police car.
According to the lawsuit, once Powell was in the cruiser, Tadewald sprayed the back seat and the handcuffed man with pepper spray. According to Wells’ subsequent police report, Tadewald used the pepper spray because Powell’s feet were blocking the car door from closing. Powell denied this to WyoFile, describing the pepper spray as a vindictive act by the officers.
His lawsuit backs up that allegation, accusing Wells and Tadewald of using “gratuitous and excessive force” during the arrest. The complaint claims that the officers successfully closed the car door. But then Wells opened the door, and Tadewald sprayed Powell, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit also claims that Wells initially kept the rear windows closed as he drove Powell to the Lander jail.
According to the complaint, when Powell pleaded for fresh air and relief from the pepper spray in his eyes, Wells told him, “That’s what you get.”
The police department’s “violence, wanton use of pain tactics, and unreasonable use of pepper spray by Defendant Tadewald against Mr. Powell was without legal justification or provocation,” according to the report.
Powell is represented by Spence Law Firm, a well-known law firm in Jackson. (Gerry Spence, a renowned litigator and the firm’s founder, died last month.) Bailey Lazzari, an attorney for Lander, also represents Powell.
Powell, a Black man who moved to Lander from Charlottesville, Virginia, sometime after 2017, is filing a rare lawsuit in Wyoming.
According to a report from the state insurance pool that covers Equality State law enforcement officers, only two constitutional claims were filed against them last year. In 2023, there were eight such claims, and 2020 saw the most constitutional claims made against officers in recent years, with 13.
Academic researchers estimate that fewer than 1% of people who believe police officers have violated their rights ever file a lawsuit. People who sue the police face a high bar for legal victory, as federal court precedent gives officers broad discretion for actions taken while on duty.
Even cases that survive motions to dismiss succeed only about 15% of the time, according to the Harvard Law Review.
Powell’s lawsuit does not allege discrimination or racism. He previously told WyoFile that he believes his appearance influenced how local law enforcement treated him in Lander, which the police chief denied.
After his court appearance, Powell approached the chief, Kelly Waugh, at a Lander gas station and secretly recorded him.
The chief admitted to Powell that “what he [Wells] did was very unprofessional,” according to a copy of the recording Powell previously provided WyoFile. Powell then informed the chief that he intended to sue the department, prompting Waugh to end the conversation. At that point, Waugh later told WyoFile, the case needed to be handled by lawyers.
Despite the chief’s admission that Wells expressed concern about his own actions during the arrest, the county continued to prosecute Powell, who received probation and a suspended 45-day jail sentence.
According to attorney Noah Drew of the Spence Law Firm, Lander officials never attempted to make amends with Powell.
“What happened to Kayvon is indefensible,” Drew told me. “While the Lander Chief of Police admitted it was wrong, the city of Lander has not apologized or taken steps to make it right. That silence emphasizes why cases like this must be pursued.”
