A Shawnee woman is suing the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety and a state trooper, alleging she was compliant during a 2024 traffic stop before being thrown to the ground so violently that her eye socket and arm were broken and her rotator cuff was torn. Denise Beck says the encounter began over an alleged illegal U-turn and a broken taillight, and ended with her handcuffed.
According to News 9, Beck was driving in Shawnee when she pulled into a parking lot to turn around, which Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Eric Smith cited as the reason for pulling her over, telling her she had made an illegal U-turn and that her taillight was not working. Court documents reviewed by the station describe what happened next: Smith pulled Beck out of her car and placed her in handcuffs, according to Beck's account, and as he walked her toward his patrol car, he can be heard asking her to stop resisting arrest. Beck alleges that Smith then slammed her to the ground, breaking her eye socket and arm and tearing her rotator cuff.
The lawsuit was originally filed in Pottawatomie County District Court as case CJ-2026-345 before defendants removed it to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma on September 23, per court dockets tracking the case under number 5:2026cv02624. The traffic stop occurred in Shawnee, the Pottawatomie County seat; the case is now before a federal judge.
State Attorneys Dispute Beck's Account
The Oklahoma Department of Public Safety has pushed back hard on Beck's version of events in its response to the lawsuit. The agency says Beck had to be forcibly removed from her car, that she refused to comply with the trooper's orders, and that she fell because she was resisting arrest, according to the News 9 report. That account directly conflicts with Beck's claim that she was compliant before being thrown to the ground, and the dossier record does not resolve which version a court will ultimately credit.
U.S. District Judge Charles Goodwin has been assigned to preside over the federal case, with Bryan & Terrill Law representing Beck and state attorneys Tracy Neel and Kevin McClure representing DPS and Trooper Smith, according to a PacerMonitor docket summary. Beck is seeking at least $75,000 in damages, the station's report notes. Attorneys J. Spencer Bryan and Steven J. Terrill of Edmond-based Bryan & Terrill Law, PLLC, were involved in an Oklahoma jail-death case in which a jury awarded $9,544,375, according to Prison Legal News.
A Trooper With a Prior Use-of-Force Incident
Smith's record includes at least one other high-profile roadside incident in the same county. In October 2022, he was involved in an incident on Interstate 40 in Pottawatomie County where he discharged his firearm at a fleeing vehicle while deploying spike strips near oncoming traffic, according to the Arizona Daily Star.
Agency Stays Silent Amid Litigation
Oklahoma Highway Patrol was contacted by News 9 for comment but said it does not comment on pending litigation. For now, the dispute over what happened on that Shawnee roadside in 2024 remains unresolved, with Beck's injuries and the trooper's past record likely to feature prominently as the federal case moves forward under Judge Goodwin.
