In Villaneuva v. Cleveland, filed January 28, 2021, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's denial of summary judgment in a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 case based on qualified immunity. Police officers observed a vehicle commit various traffic violations. When the vehicle left the scene, the officers gave chase in an unmarked vehicle. The vehicle stopped at a dead-end street. The officers stepped out of their vehicle and stood at their vehicle's sides. The suspect made a three-point turn, and began driving slowly in the general direction of the officers. Although the facts are disputed, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the turn was made in a controlled manner, the suspect vehicle was moving very slowly, and the vehicle did not drive directly at the officers, their vehicle, or anyone else. The officers shot at the vehicle, killing the driver and wounding the passenger. The passenger and the driver's parents sued the officers. The district court concluded that the passenger had standing to sue the officers; that there were too many disputed facts to find qualified immunity on summary judgment; and that viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, a reasonable jury could find the officers used excessive force in light of clearly established law.
The 9th Circuit agreed. It rejected the officers' argument that because they intended to shoot only the driver, not the passenger, the passenger had no Fourth Amendment interest. Because the officers intentionally shot at the vehicle to stop it, both of the vehicle's inhabitants were seized under the Fourth Amendment. Although case law has ruled a passenger who falls out of a vehicle and is accidently run over may not have a Fourth Amendment interest because he is not seized by the officers, case law clearly establishes that when officers intentionally use force toward more than one person and injure one of them, they have seized that person regardless of whether they subjectively intended to use force toward that person. The 9th Circuit further ruled that the officers violated clearly established law by using deadly force against a fleeing vehicle that posed no threat to them or anyone else. Officers may use deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect only if the officer has probable cause to believe the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm to the officer or to others. The 9th Circuit has consistently found use of deadly force to stop a slow-moving vehicle unreasonable when the officers could have easily stepped out of the vehicle's path to avoid danger. Use of deadly force against a stopped or slow-moving vehicle has been found reasonable only when the driver was trying to avoid arrest in an aggressive manner involving actual or attempted acceleration of the vehicle. Taking the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, the three-point turn was performed cautiously, the vehicle was not aimed directly at the officers, was moving very slowly, and was not accelerating when the officers fired. Under that version of the facts, the officers violated clearly-established law.
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