Henry testifies last year in a Missouri House Committee. Photo courtesy of the Kansas City Star.
Former longtime Water and Highway Patrol officer Randy Henry takes the next shot in the ongoing fallout from the May, 2014, drowning of Brandon Ellingson…Ellingson was in patrol custody at the time for a BWI. Henry, this week, filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri naming J-Bret Johnson, Corey Schoeneberg and Stacy Mosher as co-defendants who were serving the patrol in various roles during the investigation into Ellingson’s death. Henry, who alleges he was demoted and transferred for speaking out and blaming the trooper involved and the patrol as a whole for the 20-year-old’s death, says the purpose of the lawsuit is plain and simple.
Henry’s suit, among other things, accuses the Highway Patrol of systematically forcing him out of the patrol in retaliation for his speaking out. The trooper on the boat when Ellingson went over board, Anthony Piercy, faces an Involuntary Manslaughter charge for his connection to the drowning. Piercy’s trial had been scheduled to begin later this month but has been postponed after a change of judge was granted. At the current time, there is no date set for the trial to begin.
