Flores family takes trooper to federal court in daughter’s death
The case of an Owatonna teenager killed in a car crash in May is heading to federal court.
The parents of Olivia Flores have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, accusing former Minnesota State Trooper Shane Roper of violating their daughter’s constitutional rights and wrongfully causing her death.
The 14th Amendment, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution says that no State shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
Roper, in his individual capacity as a Minnesota State Trooper, is a person against whom a claim may be asserted. He was employed by the Minnesota State Patrol from 2016 until he was terminated on Sept. 3 as a result of an internal affairs investigation into the crash.
Roper has already been charged in Minnesota District Court with second-degree manslaughter and multiple counts of criminal vehicular operation, as well as reckless driving, in connection with the crash.
The most recent lawsuit is “another important step to the Flores family seeking justice for Olivia and accountability for the individuals and institutions whose actions and inaction led to Olivia’s death,” according to a statement from the Flores’s attorney.
A jury trial has been demanded.
The crash
On May 18, Flores went to Rochester with two friends, sisters Angelina and Katarina Bartz. The young women had played a round of golf earlier in the day, a first for Flores, and planned to have dinner at Red Lobster, at the Apache Mall.
She was the backseat passenger in Angelina Bartz’s vehicle as Bartz made a left turn from 12th Street Southwest into the mall entrance. As she completed the turn, the vehicle was struck on the rear passenger side by a vehicle driven by Roper.
He was in a Minnesota State Patrol squad car fully equipped with emergency lights, siren and an Opticom system – which allows emergency vehicles to interrupt and override traffic lights to ensure safety at intersections – but none of those were activated as he drove east on 12th Street at more than double the posted speed limit, a criminal complaint says.
The collision caused acute catastrophic traumatic injuries to Flores, including blunt force injures to her head and torso resulting in multiple skull and rib fractures, hemorrhaging, loss of consciousness and a coma.
She never regained consciousness and died on May 19, surrounded by her family and closest friends. She was 18 years old and would have graduated from Owatonna High School three weeks later.
Past issues
The federal complaint against Roper alleges “repeated reckless behavior that endangered himself, fellow troopers and members of the traveling public.”
In February 2019, Roper crashed into a state patrol squad car that was occupied by another trooper. The crash caused extensive damage to both vehicles and injury to the other trooper.
He received a disciplinary letter in April 2019.
In May 2021, Roper struck another motorist while on patrol in Rochester, resulting in damage to the squad car and the other vehicle. The complaint says he ran a stop sign and didn’t have the emergency lights or sirens activated.
In January 2022, he received another disciplinary letter.
Less than a month before the second letter, Roper responded to a request for assistance with another officer. While responding, he reportedly did not notify dispatch or create a file, then drove his squad car 22 mph over the posted speed limit, without emergency lights or siren, on an ice/snow-packed road – and hit a deer, damaging the vehicle.
In April 2022, he received his third disciplinary letter.
A year later, in a situation very similar to the one that led up to the Flores crash, Roper spotted a vehicle he thought was speeding on U.S. Highway 52 at Sixth Street in Rochester. Without emergency lights or siren, he accelerated to more than 90 mph to pursue the car.
Roper allegedly cut across all lanes of traffic to exit at 16th Street, lost control and struck the cable median barrier. His squad car was “significantly damaged,” the report says.
In June 2023, he was issued a fourth disciplinary letter.
May 18
Roper was scheduled to work that Saturday from 2 p.m. to 11 p.m., patrolling the Rochester area in a 2021 Dodge Charger squad car fully marked and equipped with emergency lights.
A 20-year-old law enforcement student from Zumbrota was in the passenger seat as a “ride-along,” arranged and approved by MSP leadership.
Just three hours into his shift, Roper had pursued four different vehicles suspected of speeding.
In those pursuits, he reached speeds of 116 mph, 99 mph, 107 mph, and 105 mph – each time without using his emergency lights at those top speeds, the federal lawsuit alleges.
In between those pursuits, Roper was called to a medical incident in Hayfield. According to the lawsuit, he drove 135 mph on rural two-lane roads and did not brake, slow or clear the intersections. While driving 135 mph, he assisted his ride-along with logging into the mobile computer in the squad, allegedly telling the student that driving at those speeds is “normal” for him.
At 5:42 p.m., Roper was on the southbound ramp of Highway 52 when he claimed he saw a white vehicle speed across three lanes of traffic and exit onto 12th Street. He also told investigators he could see that the driver was shirtless, not wearing a seatbelt and was holding a phone.
Neither the vehicle movement he described nor the exit for 12th Street were visible on Roper’s squad camera or body worn camera footage, the internal investigation showed.
Roper drove down the ramp onto the highway. His in-squad camera automatically activated because he reached a speed of over 90 mph – eventually hitting 98 mph – when he activated his emergency lights but not his siren.
As he took the exit for 12th Street, Roper nearly struck another car after crossing lane divider lines.
He turned off his squad lights when he reached 69 mph; the speed limit is 40 mph. Roper moved into the left, eastbound lane and accelerated to 83 mph as he approached the intersection and Apache Mall entrance.
The system that controls the traffic lights activates when all emergency lights are on.
Roper’s squad car broadsided the Bartz vehicle, pushing it into a third vehicle that was waiting to exit Apache Mall. All three vehicles ended up just east of the intersection.
The investigation
Immediately after the collision, Roper activated his emergency lights and siren manually, the lawsuit alleges, citing footage from both the squad car and his body worn camera.
The Rochester Police Department led the investigation into the crash.
Roper told an investigator he believed he “turned his emergency lights down from a ‘3’ position to a ‘2’ position” while driving on 12th Street – something the lawsuit calls “patently unreasonable, not credible and preposterous.”
Roper’s body worn camera footage from about 30 minutes after the crash shows him telling three Minnesota State Patrol troopers that “I had my lights on” when he drove through the intersection.
During that interaction, Roper reportedly jokes, “this isn’t my first rodeo.”
He also told investigators he saw the Bartz vehicle’s hood do a slight “nosedive,” indicating to him that it was stopping, then saw it come up as if it were accelerating and starting to turn into the intersection.
Surveillance video footage from the mall shows the Bartz vehicle stopped in the turn lane on 12th Street for about 18 seconds as several cars passed in the eastbound lanes. The vehicle only turns when the traffic has cleared.
The “black box” from Roper’s squad shows the braking system engaged 1.4 seconds before impact; the squad was still traveling an estimated 70 mph when it struck the Bartz vehicle.
At 70 mph, he was traveling about 103 feet per second.
Roper admitted he hadn’t paid attention to his speed but said what he believed he observed justified the traffic stop though it was “obviously not a domestic emergency or anything like that.”
MSP’s internal investigation found “there is simply no justification for Trp. Roper’s decision to speed through this intersection.”
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Internal Affairs investigation concluded that “even if no crash had occurred, (Roper’s) conduct is shocking.”
It went on to say he “has discredited the State Patrol, and the conduct will continue to discredit the State Patrol for the foreseeable future, because Roper’s actions are forever linked with the death” of Olivia Flores.
Carlos and Stephanie Flores now seek compensatory damages, general damages, punitive damages, and reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.