Jury finds Casper man not guilty of causing police officer’s broken leg

CASPER, Wyo. — A Casper man was found not guilty on Tuesday of felony interference after a scuffle and takedown by a Casper police officer last summer. The encounter left Casper Police Department Officer Aaron Trujillo with a broken fibula.

Though acquitted on the enhanced charge, the jury found Anthony Steven Roy, 41, guilty of misdemeanor interference, which carries a penalty of up to a year in prison. The trial before Judge Dan Forgey began Monday and the jury returned a verdict after about two and a half hours of deliberation Tuesday evening.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Blaine Nelson told the jury that Trujillo’s injury was the direct result of Roy’s noncompliance with the officer’s commands and the ensuing struggle. Public Defender Tim Cotton, however, said that the officer instigated the physical altercation and that Roy neither intended nor attempted to cause injury to Trujillo. He suggested that a botched hip toss maneuver may have caused the injury.

The jury was presented multiple times with body cam and dash cam footage which show the incident in a shaky close-up perspective at a downward angle and from afar, respectively. The closing arguments contained contrasting statements about what the footage actually shows.

Shortly before midnight on July 7, 2024, staff at the counseling center on Wilkins Circle called to report a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot that had been there for hours. The caller said it appeared the people in the vehicle may have been using controlled substances. 

The caller stated that there were no scheduled intakes that night. That information was relayed to Officer Trujillo, who was first to arrive on scene and contact a man and a woman at the vehicle. The man, Roy, is first seen rummaging in the car with the door open, and Trujillo asks him for his name. Roy refuses to answer and walks up the steps to the counselor center’s locked entry door.

“I’m not asking you again or you’re going to jail,” Trujillo says in the footage. Roy then stands at the top of the steps and puts his arms out, making a statement about “having a warrant anyway” and saying he intended to check himself into rehab. 

Trujillo can be seen reaching out for Roy’s shoulder and Roy twists. Trujillo testified that Roy was very agitated and had thrown an elbow. The rest of the body cam footage is angled downward, with elements of the struggle captured in glimpses. The dash cam footage from the police cruiser in the parking lot appears to show Roy trying to shove Trujillo. 

Trujillo testified that Roy was fighting back. “His arms were out, and it looked like fists to me. … His actions dictated my response.” During the struggle Trujillo said he felt a shooting pain in his leg.

Trujillo then performed a “hip toss” takedown maneuver and both men went to the ground. By then, Officer Zachary Gonzales had arrived and rushed to assist, seeing only part of the struggle. After Roy is handcuffed and sat on the steps, he says he is drunk.

“You can see striking and jabbing [by the defendant],” Nelson told Judge Forgey outside the presence of the jury while arguing against Cotton’s oral rationale for a judgement of acquittal based after the state rested its case.

“I don’t think the videos show ‘striking,’ as the state suggests,” Cotton said.

These contrasting narratives were brought up again during closing arguments.

“You can hear audibly that swiping jab,” Nelson said.

“I’ve yet to see one punch,” Cotton said, recalling the video. “I do not see the client’s fists. I see him pushing him away to try to get distance.”

Cotton said Roy’s “arms-out” posture and profanity-laden statements were born of frustration: “He was just trying to go to rehab.”

Both Nelson and Cotton reminded the jury that opposing counsel’s comments about the footage were not evidence and that they should rely on their own judgement about what they saw.

Nelson reminded the jury that Trujillo testified he was acting in the interests of public safety by responding to a call for suspicious activity at night on private property, trying to prevent Roy from going into the facility. 

“They’re the ones who called,” Trujillo testified. “I felt I would do a disservice to the employees inside if I didn’t keep him outside.”

Roy’s statement about having a warrant was also cause for concern, Trujillo said. Roy’s warrant was for failure to appear at Adult Drug Court, according to court records. But Trujillo didn’t know that, or Roy’s identity, at the time.

Trujillo also said that the suspect’s vehicle doors were open and that Roy was rummaging through the vehicle when he arrived. The woman Roy was with was also moving around a lot.

Gonzales, the officer who arrived to assist, testified about what those circumstances could mean to an officer arriving on scene with limited information. “He could have grabbed a gun and put it in his waistband,” Gonzales said. “These are the things that go through our mind every day.”

Roy has been in jail since his arrest. Cotton said he is being held on other matters, so the issue of bond was not addressed. Sentencing is expected in the coming weeks.

Note: Oil City News was not present for the entirety of the trial proceedings and this article does not reflect the totality of evidence considered by the jury.