Ridgefield
Kennedy v. Ridgefield
Opinion
Opinion
I. Introduction
Kimberly Kennedy’s § 1983 action against Ridgefield City and Ridgefield Police Officer Noel Shields stems from events occurring on September 24, 1998, when a thirteen year-old neighbor, Michael Burns, shot and killed her husband Jay Kennedy and severely wounded her.
On September 6, 1998, Kennedy called the Ridgefield Police Department (“RPD”) and alleged that Michael Burns had molested Kennedy’s nine-year-old daughter, Tera Teufel. RPD Officer Shields responded to the call.
Kennedy claims to have warned Shields of Michael Burns’s violent tendencies at the September 6 meeting. Kennedy insists that during their initial meeting, she told Shields that the Burns family was unstable and that she had seen a lot of violence in their home. She alleges that she went on to describe several violent incidents involving Angela Burns, Michael’s mother. Kennedy also claims she informed Shields that Michael Burns had been involved in a number of violent incidents, including fights at school, lighting a cat on fire, breaking into his girlfriend’s house and attacking her with a baseball bat, and throwing rocks at a building in downtown Ridgefield.