Aipperspach v. McInerney, et al., No. 13-2942 (8th Cir. 2014)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that law enforcement officers used excessive force when they shot and killed her brother (Mahir S. Al-Hakim). The district court granted summary judgment to the City, its police chief, and Officers Ballard and Westrich. The court also granted summary judgment to the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners and Officers McLaughlin. The court agreed with the district court that the officers' use of deadly force was objectively reasonable and therefore Al-Hakim's Fourth Amendment rights were not violated. The court rejected plaintiff's primary argument that the district court erred in disregarding video footage taken from a news helicopter. The court concluded that the district court viewed the video and concluded that it could not answer the issue of objective reasonableness from the perspective of an officer on the ground. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.
Court Description: Civil case - Civil rights. The district court did not err in granting summary judgment to the defendant officers on plaintiff's claim that the officers used excessive force in arresting her decedent as the undisputed facts demonstrated that the officers' use of deadly force was objectively reasonable under the circumstances; the court's conclusion that the individual officers did not violate the deceased's Fourth Amendment rights resolves the appeal of the district court's order granting summary judgment to the City of Riverside, its police chief and the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners as they could not be liable absent a constitutional violation by the individual officers.
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