In July 2017, law enforcement officers around the region were on the lookout for Gerald “Mike” Bullinger, a man suspected of murdering two women and a teenager in Idaho. Bullinger’s vehicle was spotted in northwest Wyoming that month and soon after, authorities thought they caught a break: A worker at Yellowstone National Park’s East Entrance reported seeing the fugitive heading toward Cody.

Park rangers caught up to the vehicle a short time later and blocked it in at the Newton Creek Campground. With guns trained on the occupants, rangers kept the occupants inside the vehicle until backup from the Park County Sheriff’s Office arrived.

The group of officers then ordered the man and woman out at gunpoint, handcuffed the couple and placed them in separate patrol vehicles, all while keeping a gun on their 7-year-old child, according to the family.

Authorities then realized they had the wrong people.

Instead of catching a fugitive, the officers had detained Brett and Genalyn Hemry of Independence, Missouri, who, along with their daughter, had simply been vacationing in Yellowstone. The Hemrys were released about an hour later, but they say they experienced fear, fright, pain, suffering, humiliation, mental and emotional distress and anguish, and loss of enjoyment of life from the ordeal.

This July, roughly four years after they were stopped, the Hemrys filed suit in Wyoming’s U.S. District Court against four of the involved officers and reserved the right to name others as defendants.

The complaint asserts that Yellowstone Rangers Brad Ross and Mehran Azizian and Park County Sheriff’s Deputies Rob Cooke and Brett Tillery violated the Hemrys’ civil rights. Seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, the federal lawsuit alleges the officers made a false arrest, used excessive force and falsely imprisoned the family.

The rangers and deputies “intentionally deprived [the Hemrys] of their personal freedom and their constitutional rights by force, threat of force, menace and unreasonable duress,” wrote the family’s attorney, Robert Moxley of Cheyenne. 

However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Wyoming and the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office — representing the rangers and deputies, respectively — asked for the case to be dismissed last week. While saying it’s understandable that the Hemrys are frustrated, upset and disturbed by the incident, the officers’ attorneys say they acted reasonably and within the law.

“In truth, it is difficult to imagine how the [officers] could have approached this situation differently without risking serious injury,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Gross wrote in a Sept. 28 brief. “[The Hemrys] might have preferred that the officers [would] simply approach the car door and ask for identification. But such an approach ignores the seriousness of the threat posed — to officers and passengers alike — by a triple murder suspect like Bullinger, a dangerous man who has crossed state lines to avoid consequences for his crimes.”

“As far as [the officers] knew at the time,” Gross added, “Bullinger was in that white Toyota, except now he had passengers as well, who may have been complicit in his plan or may even have been hostages.”

Mistaken identity

Bullinger is alleged to have killed his wife, his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s 14-year-old daughter in 2017, according to media accounts of the case. The three women’s remains were found near Caldwell, Idaho in June 2017, inside a shed that Bullinger owned. The following month, Bullinger’s empty vehicle was found outside Moran in the Bridger-Teton National Forest.

It was eight days later, on the morning of July 20, 2017, that a Park Service employee reported spotting Bullinger at Yellowstone’s East Entrance, saying they’d seen him in what turned out to be the Hemrys’ Toyota Venza. The park’s gate was temporarily shut down so vehicles could be searched and area law enforcement agencies were notified to be on the lookout.

As for the Hemrys, their complaint indicates they were clueless as to what was developing as they left the park and headed east along the North Fork Highway. When Brett Hemry saw he was being closely followed by a pair of rangers, he pulled over to see if they would pass, according to the lawsuit.

But once they stopped at the Newton Creek Campground, the Hemrys were immediately blocked in by the two Park Service vehicles.

Using a loudspeaker and armed with long guns, the complaint says the rangers ordered the Hemrys to throw the keys from their SUV and keep their hands on the roof of the vehicle. After roughly a half-an-hour in that position, deputies from the Park County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement personnel arrived and the Hemrys were ordered to get out of the Toyota. They were then handcuffed and placed in separate patrol vehicles, while another officer “continued to point a long gun at the minor child” as she remained in the Toyota, the complaint alleges.

That lasted for another half-hour, the complaint says, until Brett Hemry was allowed to display his identification. At that point, after roughly an hour of being detained at gunpoint, the family members were told they were free to go “because Mr. Hemry and his family had no connection to the suspect,” Moxley wrote.

“The terrified family went on its way, without receiving an apology or additional explanation,” the complaint says, calling the officers’ overall actions “outrageous.”

“The defendants’ conduct was carried out intentionally and recklessly, in the absence of sufficient factual information and in violation of known constitutional standards,” Moxley wrote.

The complaint charges that the officers lacked the evidence to make the initial traffic stop, used excessive force by pointing firearms at the family for so long and should have identified and communicated with the Hemrys more quickly. The couple contends that Brett Hemry “bore no resemblance” to Bullinger, “save for the light color of his hair.” 

“The continued detention and use of unreasonable force by defendants continued for a long period of time after it would have been obvious to a reasonable person that there was no justification for seizure of the [Hemrys] and interference with their liberty,” Moxley wrote.

Difficult situation

In a response last week, the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, representing the sheriff’s deputies, defended the officers’ response. The 52-minute stop was “brief” and did not amount to an arrest, wrote Senior Assistant Attorneys General Ewa Dawson and Steve McManamen, while the officers’ decision to pull the couple over was “more than reasonable” considering the information they had at the time. They also wrote the officers’ decision to hold the Hemrys at gunpoint and handcuff the couple “were all objectively reasonable uses of force based on the circumstances confronting the officers in this case.”

Dawson and McManamen said these types of situations are difficult for officers, who are expected to honor the constitutional rights of those they encounter but also have an obligation to catch dangerous people.

“Given the violent nature of the crimes Bullinger was suspected of committing, as well as the specific reporting that tied him to a vehicle matching the description of the one driven by the Hemrys, it was reasonable for the officers to make the stop, and take the time necessary to thoroughly and cautiously determine the identity of the occupants in a manner that ensured the safety of the officers and the public,” McManamen and Dawson wrote.

They and Assistant U.S. Attorney Gross, representing the park rangers, contend the officers didn’t violate any clearly established rights and are therefore immune from being sued.

“... allowing these types of claims to go forward against officers who make reasonable mistakes is the exact situation the doctrine of qualified immunity was meant to prevent,” Gross wrote. “Punishing this type of reasonable mistake would chill an officer in this situation from acting in the future; instead of jeopardizing their safety, their career, and their economic future, law enforcement faced with stopping and investigating a potential murder suspect would be better off allowing the suspect to go free, lest they make a reasonable mistake.

“Such a result is absurd and should be avoided here,” he wrote.

Among other arguments, Gross also contends the complaint should be dismissed because it isn’t specific enough about which officers are alleged to have done what during the encounter.

In the coming weeks, the Hemrys and their attorney will respond to the state and federal governments’ requests for dismissal.

As for Bullinger, authorities have yet to find him.