A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit filed by a Little Rock man who was struck by a hit-and-run driver in late 2017 while being escorted in handcuffs across a city street by a police officer who was also struck.

Daryl M. Johnson, who was taken to a hospital alongside the arresting officer, Lt. Johnny Gilbert Jr., alleged that Gilbert lacked probable cause to arrest him on a disorderly conduct charge that was later dropped.

In an order issued Friday, Chief U.S. District Judge D. Price Marshall Jr. noted that he had earlier dismissed several of Johnson's claims in the lawsuit, leaving three federal claims and several state claims that Johnson alleged against Gilbert; other officers he accused of covering for Gilbert; and the city, which he accused of failing to train all the officers.

The arrest occurred early Nov. 5, 2017, on Daisy Gatson Bates Drive outside Philander Smith College, which was hosting a homecoming party.

In his order, Marshall recapped the facts as presented to the court: Johnson and two friends rode together to the party, arriving around 11 p.m. Nov. 4. They parked across the street and were admitted into the party by police and door monitors. When they and some others left some time later, the door monitors said they would be allowed back in. But while they were at their cars, police decided to stop letting people back in because the venue was full and the event was scheduled to end in about an hour.

When Johnson and his friends were denied reentry, "that's when things heated up," Marshall wrote.

He said Johnson and the others were "understandably frustrated," and they exchanged some words as the officers told them to disperse, then stopped on the sidewalk.

Marshall said Gilbert "made a pointed comment: the young people should be more worried, he said, about getting a degree than about getting into a party. This made several people mad, because almost all were college graduates. There was cussing from both sides. The officers continued to tell the group to disperse. The five or six young people hem-hawed around -- now walking across the street, but pausing to trade more heated words with the officers."

Marshall noted that at this point, "Officer Gilbert had enough" and approached them as they walked slowly across the street, saying he was going to "make an example" out of them or "teach y'all a lesson."

Gilbert then grabbed Johnson, the closest of the young men, and as he began to escort Johnson out of the street, both were hit by a passing car.

Earlier reports said other officers quickly responded, removing Johnson's handcuffs and rendering aid before both he and Gilbert were transported to a hospital, where Johnson stayed for three days. While he was hospitalized, another officer gave Johnson a disorderly conduct citation.

Marshall said Arkansas' disorderly conduct law "is in the margin" when it comes to deciding when an officer has probable cause to make a warrantless arrest, but that a "reasonable officer" could have concluded that probable cause existed to arrest Johnson on the Class C misdemeanor, as he and others didn't comply with the officers' orders to disperse.

"Viewed in the light most favorable to Johnson," as judges are required to do when evaluating early motions for a ruling based on the law alone, "the prosecutor's decision to drop the charge indicates that Officer Gilbert made a mistake," Marshall said. "But qualified immunity protects him" because a reasonable officer in his shoes could have believed that Johnson and his friends violated the refusal-to-disperse part of the disorderly conduct law.

Marshall said that eliminated the only remaining federal claim, the alleged Fourth Amendment violation, which left only state-law claims that he declined to assert jurisdiction over.

Keith Hearnsberger, then an assistant principal at McClellan High School who lived in the area, surrendered the next day, admitting he was the hit-and-run driver. He pleaded guilty in February 2019 to two second-degree battery charges for which he was sentenced in May 2019 to a year in prison.

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Judge tosses suit on officer's actions before car strike - Arkansas Online