SUSAN PECK, ET AL V. ANTHONY MONTOYA, ET AL, No. 20-56413 (9th Cir. 2022)
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Five deputies responded to a 911 call reporting that P.M. was acting erratically and threatening someone with a firearm. The deputies asserted that P.M. ignored their warnings, picked up a gun, and began raising it toward them. Two of the deputies shot and killed P.M. His wife claimed that eyewitness testimony and ballistics analysis proved that P.M. was not moving toward the gun, never touched the gun, and did not pose an immediate threat to himself or others. Plaintiff brought this action asserting that the deputies violated P.M.’s Fourth Amendment rights and her own Fourteenth Amendment right to a familial relationship.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s denial of Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. On the excessive-force claim, the panel concluded that the deputies who shot P.M. were not entitled to qualified immunity. The panel concluded a jury could conclude that Defendants fired at an unarmed man who, although in the presence of a gun, never picked it up and in fact was moving away from it when he was shot. Officers may not kill suspects simply because they are behaving erratically, nor may they kill suspects who do not pose an immediate threat to their safety or to the safety of others simply because they are armed. Nevertheless, even under this court’s case law relating to familial-association claims asserted by parents and children, Plaintiff’s claim failed because no showing of a purpose to harm had been made or even attempted.
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