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Family of man shot at 39 times by N.J. troopers files appeal of civil suit

Every day since Eric Quick was fatally shot six years ago by three New Jersey state troopers, his mother, Kathy Quick, has written a small note to her son on a wall calendar.

Every day since Eric Quick was fatally shot six years ago by three New Jersey state troopers, his mother, Kathy Quick, has written a small note to her son on a wall calendar.

"I'm looking at it now," her husband, Jim, said the other day. "It says, '2,273. Dear Eric, I love you and miss you.' I have six years' worth of these calendars."

Eric Quick, 31, of Maple Shade, Burlington County, abandoned a stolen car on Interstate 295 during a chase on July 21, 2003, and fled into a wooded area in Bellmawr, Camden County.

State troopers and municipal officers followed Quick into the woods and ordered him to raise his hands. When he did, the troopers testified, they saw what they thought was a gun in Quick's hand and opened fire.

The alleged handgun turned out to be a 2-inch glass crack pipe.

In February, a U.S. District Court judge presiding over the family's civil suit said that the 39 bullets fired at an "unarmed, shoeless suspect" reads like a "tragic misuse of force" in "news headlines," but ruled that the shooting had been "objectively reasonable."

This week, attorneys for Quick's estate filed an appeal of the civil suit with the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, claiming that Judge Noel Hillman had "ignored" reports by an expert witness and the state's medical examiner.

"We continue to maintain that the New Jersey State Police used excessive and deadly force by firing 39 shots at an unarmed man," said Andrew Smith, an attorney for Quick's family.

Quick was hit 18 times and, according to the medical examiner's report, 11 of those bullets entered his body from the back.

The expert witness, James Williams, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, state trooper and police instructor hired by Quick's family, said that Quick had not posed a danger and that troopers should have formed a perimeter or called in K-9 units rather than follow him into the dark woods.

Williams also said he believed that the troopers had fired on Quick while he was on the ground.

Attorneys for the state said Quick was hit in the back because the initial bullets caused his body to spin around. Hillman agreed. The state medical examiner, however, said Quick's body did not spin when hit by the bullets.

The three troopers were cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in 2005.

David Jones, president of the State Troopers Fraternal Association, said he sympathizes with the family's pain, but also noted that Quick was a "career criminal."

"It's tragic, it's painful, but it was inevitable," he said. "There was never any doubt after that night as to what happened out there, except in the family's eyes."

James Quick said the suit had been filed by Quick's former wife, on behalf of their two teenage daughters.

"The girls would get the money. We get nothing," he said. "We just want justice."

The New Jersey Attorney General's Office declined yesterday to comment on the appeal.