Stamps v. Town of Framingham, No. 15-1141 (1st Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseEurie Stamps, Sr., an innocent, elderly, African-American man, was shot by Paul Duncan, a local police officer, during a SWAT team raid executing a search warrant for drugs and drug-related paraphernalia belonging to two drug dealers thought to reside in Stamps’s home. The co-administrators of Stamps’s estate sued the Town of Framingham and Duncan, arguing that Duncan violated Stamps’s constitutional right against unreasonable seizure when he pointed a loaded semi-automatic rifle at Stamps’s head, with the safety off and a finger on the trigger, even though Stamps was compliant and posed no known threat to the officers. Duncan filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that he was entitled to qualified immunity because the shooting was an accident and not a violation of clearly established law. The district court denied the motion, ruling that a reasonable jury could find that Duncan had violated Stamps’s Fourth Amendment rights and that the law was sufficiently clearly established to put Duncan on notice that his actions were not constitutionally permissible. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that Duncan, in the situation at issue, was on notice that his actions could be violative of Stamps’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force.
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