Kuna Man Awarded Settlement in Wrongful Arrest Case Speaks Out

The Kuna man who recently settled a federal lawsuit with Ada County over a wrongful arrest at the Kuna police station spoke to the Idaho Dispatch to shed more light on the details of the case.

Kuna is a contract city with Ada County for law enforcement services. The Ada County Sheriff’s office provides deputies to serve as officers in some cities that do not have their own police force. Star is another example of a contract city of this type.

Michael “Mick” Heikkola stopped at the Kuna police station to drop off an expired prescription medication on January 17, 2023. He stopped to look in the window of one of the police SUVs in the parking lot, curious what it was like inside. A man approached him wearing regular street clothes and began yelling, demanding Heikkola remove his hands from his pockets. The man did not identify himself as a police officer, or as an employee of Ada County. Heikkola refused and responded with a profane statement.

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Heikkola entered the station and spoke to the receptionist, taking care of the disposal of the prescription medication. As Heikkola exited the station door and walked away to leave, six officers accosted him and used the metal railing outside to aggressively and painfully pin and arrest him. His rights were not read to him at any point. Because of a recent surgery, Mr. Heikkola soiled himself during the encounter. At first he was afraid to make that fact known to officers, but once he did, was still forced to sit in his feces for several hours until his wife picked him up from the Ada County jail in Boise.

Documents obtained from the lawsuit filed in federal court show the complaint explaining,

“Mr. Heikkola has suffered harm and damages (including out-of-pocket losses, emotional distress and psychological damage, mental anguish and humiliation, and impairment of reputation) as a direct and proximate result of Defendants’ acts and deliberate indifference to his rights.

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-Defendants lacked probable cause to arrest Mr. Heikkola for anything he did on January 17, 2023.
-Defendants caused him to be arrested and prosecuted anyhow.
-Defendants prosecuted Mr. Heikkola with malice, without probable cause, and for purposes other than bringing Mr. Heikkola to justice.
-Defendants prosecuted Mr. Heikkola for the purpose of denying his rights to freedom of speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
-Defendants knowingly provided misinformation to the prosecutor, concealed exculpatory evidence, and otherwise engaged in wrongful or bad faith conduct that was actively instrumental in causing the initiation and continuation of legal proceedings against Mr. Heikkola.
-Defendants deprived Mr. Heikkola of his rights under the Fourth Amendment and the Due Process guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
-Defendants acted under color of state law, and they acted or purported to act in the performance of official duties.”

Also addressed are complaints regarding Ada County Sheriff’s office’s “training deficiencies, omissions, and policies” which Heikkola felt contributed to the incident he experienced.

“Defendants Fratusco and Geisel disregarded the known or obvious consequence that training deficiencies and omissions would cause the subordinates to violate Mr. Heikkola’s constitutional rights and those deficiencies and omissions did actually cause the subordinates to deprive Mr. Heikkola of his constitutional rights.

Ada County’s training policies were not adequate to prevent violations of law by its employees or train its employees to handle the usual and recurring situations with which they must deal. Ada County was deliberately indifferent to the substantial risk that its policies were inadequate to prevent violations of law by its employees and to the known and obvious consequences of its failure to train its employees adequately. The County’s failure to train and to prevent violations of law by its employees played a substantial part in causing, and is so closely related to the deprivation of Mr. Heikkola’s rights as to be the moving force that caused, Mr. Heikkola’s ultimate injuries, harm, and damages. Ada County’s final policymakers, including Defendant Fratusco, acted to deprive Heikkola of his rights while acting as final policymakers and likewise ratified the acts and failures to act by the individual defendants that deprived Heikkola of his rights.”

According to this Ada County news release from June 26,

“As part of resolving the lawsuit, all incoming and existing Ada County Sheriff’s Office deputies are receiving and will continue to receive specific scenario training regarding Mr. Heikkola’s arrest.”

Mr. Heikkola sat down with the Idaho Dispatch and explained what took place in further detail. When asked what he thought has not been explained well to the public in the local coverage of the case, he said,

“The escalation and intimidation factor was something that I don’t think got covered very well.”

When asked what he would like to see change in the training of Sheriff Deputies moving forward, he answered,

“One of the things I really want them to work on is their de-escalation skills, their transparency, and their accountability.”

On June 29, Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford released a statement regarding the incident and the case. He said,

“It wasn’t our best day.”

But went on to add,

“For anyone to claim we are trampling on someone’s constitutional rights simply isn’t true. The reality is, we have hundreds of contacts every day with people of all different backgrounds, religions, ethnicities and socioeconomic standings. While the vast majority of those interactions go well, occasionally we fumble and miss the mark.”

Feature photo included in federal court filing from Kuna Police station camera shows Mick Heikkola being pinned against the railing by officers.