Alicia Street v. Gerald Leyshock, No. 21-1524 (8th Cir. 2022)
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This is the third appeal to the Eighth Circuit involving litigation arising from police response to protest activity in St. Louis on September 17, 2017. In this case, as in the others, Plaintiffs allege that St. Louis police officers boxed civilians into a downtown intersection in a maneuver characterized as a “kettle.” Some persons caught in this kettle allegedly were beaten, pepper sprayed, handcuffed with zip-ties, and arrested. The Eighth Circuit has issued two decisions in cases brought by different plaintiffs against the same six police officers.
The Eighth Circuit reversed the district court’s order denying the officers’ motion to dismiss with respect to Plaintiffs’ claims alleging use of excessive force and conspiracy to deprive civil rights. The court affirmed the order with respect to the claims alleging unlawful arrest.
The court explained that the case-at-hand arises in the same procedural posture and includes the same relevant factual allegations as Baude v. Leyshock, 23 F.4th 1065 (8th Cir. 2022), and Baude precludes a grant of qualified immunity on the arrest claims in this case as well. Thus, the court concluded that the allegations, in this case, are insufficient to establish a plausible claim that the defendant officers violated any Plaintiffs clearly established right against the use of excessive force.
Court Description: [Before Colloton, Author, and Kelly and Kobes, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Civil rights. For two other appeals involving the St. Louis police response to protest activity on September 17, 2017, see Faulk v. City of St. Louis, 30 F.4th 739 (8th Cir. 2022) and Baude v. Leyshock, 23 F.4th 1065 (8th Cir. 2022). Plaintiffs contended that the defendants - six supervisory officers - caused them to be arrested without probable cause, and the officers moved for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The district court denied the motion, and the officers appeal. This case involves the same set of facts presented in Baude, and that case precludes a grant of qualified immunity on the arrest claims in this case; with respect to plaintiffs' excessive force claims, the allegations in the case are insufficient to establish a probable claim that the defendant officers violated any plaintiff's clearly established right against the use of excessive force, and the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on these claims; the officers were also entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiffs' claims for conspiracy to deprive them of their civil rights as the law is not clearly established such that reasonable officers would have known with any certainty that the alleged agreements were forbidden by law. Judge Kelly, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
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