COLUMBUS — A federal appeals court Wednesday refused to grant a new trial in a civil lawsuit brought by the family of a Fremont-area man who was shot and killed by Sandusky County sheriff’s deputies six years ago.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati rejected arguments that evidence had been withheld from the jury, including the fact that the shotgun that Bryan Jones, 26, held wasn’t loaded.

Jones was killed late on the night of July 11, 2010, after his parents, Kim and Tracy Jones, reported to authorities that their son had been drinking heavily and had threatened to kill his mother. When police arrived that night, they observed through a house window that Bryan Jones was sitting on a living room couch with his eyes closed and a pump-style shotgun in his lap.

Jones was fatally shot when the tactical response team entered in conjunction with a flashbang grenade and the shattering of a window.

His parents sued, although Tracy Jones died while the litigation was pending. 

The jury sided with Sheriff Kyle Overmyer and his deputies Jose Calvillo and Mario Calvillo against wrongful death and excessive force claims.

U.S. District Court Judge Jack Zouhary later refused to grant a new trial and now the 6th District has agreed with that decision.

Dennis Murray, Sr., attorney for the family, said he will ask the entire 6th Circuit bench to reconsider the three-judge decision and will turn to the U.S. Supreme Court if that fails.

Among other things, the parents had argued that the jury should have been told that the shotgun was unloaded. The defendants had argued that Jones had swung the shotgun in the tactical force’s direction and had pumped it.

“There was never any dispute that the defendants thought Bryan held a loaded shotgun and only later discovered that it was not loaded,” Circuit Judge Ralph B. Guy, Jr. wrote. “The district court properly recognized that this fact should not be considered when judging the use of force from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene ‘rather than with the 20/​20 vision of hindsight.’ Nor would this unknown fact show that defendants acted recklessly for purposes of the wrongful death claims.”

Once the jury had decided that the two deputies who shot Jones had not engaged in excessive force, it did not go on to determine whether the sheriff himself could have been held responsible for recklessness.

“In the final analysis, the trial court denied the opportunity for the jurors to determine the answer to the question, ‘May we find the sheriff liable under the Ohio statute for formulating the plan to go in and take this young man as they did?’,” Mr. Murray said.

The city’s attorney in the case did not immediately return a call for comment.

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0496.

First Published June 16, 2016, 4:00 a.m.