The driver of a black GMC Sierra, who led the Arkansas State Police on an absolutely insane high-speed pursuit, did actually have legs. However, dash cam video shows that his legs appeared to be injured and totally limp, as officers dragged him across the road, handcuffed, and shoved him into the rear of a police car. Was that a constitutional violation?
On May 20, 2023, at 3:21 p.m. Arkansas State Police Trooper Jackson Shumate initiated a traffic stop on a black GMC Sierra, at US Highway 67 South at the 3 mile marker along with Trooper T. Van Schoyck and Trooper A. Escamilla. The vehicle was known to be driven by 42-year-old Christopher Monroe. Arkansas State Police said before this chase, Monroe was already wanted for drug traffic charges out of Sherwood, Arkansas. On May 4th, 2023 he fled from ASP before doing the same on the 19th. Ten days prior, police in Rockwell County, Texas put out a warrant for his arrest for evading in a motor vehicle.
Police attempted to box him in, bur failed and the chase was on. At one point early in the interaction Trooper T. Van Schoyck attempts to PIT the vehicle but ends up failing and sliding into a concrete barrier instead. Despite that failure to stop the vehicle, the police continue to chase Monroe as speeds climb. Monroe and the police cars following him cross over the Arkansas River going around 120 mph (193 km/h). Monroe then turns around and makes it only a few blocks before being hit from behind by police, which causes him to roll his truck. The GMC eventually hits a brick wall and comes to a stop on its wheels.
Because of how forceful the crash is, the police car itself almost flips. Later, Monroe is removed from the car by police who had surrounded it. Police found 64 grams of ecstasy, 100 grams of meth, 436 grams of cocaine, 89 grams of fentanyl pills, 182 grams of marijuana, 12 grams of heroin, and 46 grams of Xanax. Along with a Taurus handgun and numerous drug paraphernalia, Monroe also had $8,612 in cash in the car. He was charged with trafficking fentanyl and cocaine, possession of narcotics and methamphetamine with intent to deliver, felony fleeing, simultaneous possession of drugs and a firearm, aggravated assault of law enforcement and criminal mischief.
An arrestee has a constitutional right to be provided with medical care if there was a known, serious need for medical care. A serious medical need is one that has been diagnosed by a physician as requiring treatment, or one that is so obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize the necessity for a doctor’s attention.
Deliberate indifference is established only if there is actual knowledge of a substantial risk that the arrestee required medical treatment and if the Defendants disregarded that risk by intentionally refusing or failing to take reasonable measures to deal with the problem. Mere negligence or inadvertence does not constitute deliberate indifference.
Indianapolis police officer Eric Huxley was filmed headstomping a handcuffed man. After the video surfaced, he ended up being the one arrested. Now he has been found guilty in federal court of violating the man’s civil rights.
To determine whether a police officer applied excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, we instead examine officers’ actions “in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 397, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989). Specifically, we examine “the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Id. at 396, 109 S.Ct. 1865.
This never-before-seen footage shows my client being attacked by a police K9 in Moundsville, Marshall County, West Virginia. Cops were looking to arrest her on a probation violation. She was scared and hiding under some clothes. The K9 was used, not only to search and find her, but to punish her by violently biting and attacking her. Today we filed a federal civil rights lawsuit.
When a K9 is deployed on a citizen, that individual is “seized” for Fourth Amendment purposes. Assuming the seizure itself was lawful, the issue is whether the seizure may be “unreasonable” due to being an excessive level of force. The deployment itself of a police K9 during the course of a seizure may be unreasonable, depending on the circumstances. Courts look to the Graham Factors: the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect is actively resisting or evading, and most importantly, whether the suspect poses an immediate safety threat to the officer, or others.
Here’s the police report:
Kandi Wood was severely injured on arm due to the K9 attack:
Repeatedly over the years, the Courts have held generally that the use of serious or violent force, i.e., disproportionate force) in arresting or seizing an individual that has surrendered, or who is not actively resisting or attempting to flee, and who does not present a danger to others, is an unreasonable excessive force violation.
The Fourth Circuit has also held that sending a police dog into a home that contained a burglary suspect, without warning, resulting in severe injuries to the homeowner, was an excessive force violation. Vathekan v. Prince George’s County (4th Cir. 1998). Furthermore, doing so where the suspect was surrounded by police officers is itself unreasonable and excessive, even where a warning is given. (Kopf v. Wing (4th Cir. 1991).
The 7th Circuit has denied qualified immunity to a police officer where he failed to call off a police dog that was mauling a “non-resisting (or at least passively resisting) suspect.” Becker v. Elfreich (7th Cir. 2016). That Court also denied qualified immunity to an officer who commanded a dog to attack a suspect who was already complying with orders, and where there were multiple backup officers present. Alicea v. Thomas (7th Cir. 2016).
The Fourth Circuit cited that last case in 2017 as providing “fair warning” to police officers that they will lose qualified immunity where an officer deploys a police dog against a suspect was was “not in active flight at the time he was discovered,” but was “standing still, arms raised….” Booker v. S.C. Dep’t of Corr. (4th Cir. 2017).
Where K9s are deployed, a warning should be given, along with an opportunity to surrender, where possible. Deploying K9s on suspects who have been already subdued, surrounded, or who are not actively resisting or evading arrest, is also likely excessive force, with or without a warning. Deploying K9s on suspects who pose no immediate threat is generally going to be unreasonable. K9s should only be deployed where there exists a serious immediate safety threat in a tense, fast-moving situation, where there’s some actual reason for doing so.
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This woman was 6 and a half months pregnant when she was pulled over by New York State troopers on March 20. She alleged that she was forced off the road, pulled out of her vehicle, and then treated roughly by the troopers, resulting in her having an emergency C section on the same day, ending in the death of the unborn child. She hired an attorney who called for an investigation in an interview with the media, claiming that civil rights were violated and that the child’s death was homicide, caused by the troopers, claiming she was yanked out of her car like a “rag doll” and slammed on the hood of a vehicle.
In response, the New York State Police released the body cam footage, along with a statement announcing that a “quantity of fentanyl and methamphetamine was located secreted” in the woman’s body. Does the footage corroborate the claims, or exonerate the troopers?
A college student is walking down the sidewalk. Suddenly he is grabbed by multiple police officers wearing plain clothes. He has no idea they’re police officers. He thinks he’s getting mugged. Bystanders think he’s getting mugged. They call 911. It looks like a mugging. They take his wallet. They beat him. But they were cops. Not just any cops. They were federalized into a task force. You are an innocent victim. Can you sue them?
Qualified immunity is bad enough. But imagine an America where the federal government can deputize your local law enforcement and take them completely out of state and local control. Imagine they can violate your constitutional rights and there’s nothing you can do about it. Imagine they have more than just qualified immunity, but you basically can’t sue them at all. That’s what’s at issue in this important case, King v. Brownback, being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by the Institute for Justice – for a second time.
I recently had the opportunity to talk to Patrick Jaicomo, who has already argued this case once before the Supreme Court. He explains the backstory about what happened to James King, as well as the extraordinary lengths the government has gone to keep an innocent victim from ever seeing a jury over the violation of his constitutional rights.
This is an extremely important issue because we are seeing these federal task forces pop up all over the country. If the courts take the position that state and local officers are effectively federal officers, they basically can’t be sued. Courts will say, yeah he violated your constitutional rights, but there’s nothing you can do about it. So far, that’s what has happened to James King. He was completely innocent and local police officers beat the hell out of him. But he couldn’t sue them.
The Institute for Justice is asking the Supreme Court to fix this problem. Here’s some insight from one of the country’s top civil rights lawyers about this case and about what you can do to help. The King case is important because it’s undisputed that James was innocent; that his civil rights were violated. The only real issue is whether, as a citizen, there’s anything he can do about it. If a private citizen beat him, he could sue him and seek money damages before a jury. But here he can’t because he was beaten by his government.
If they were just regular state and local cops, it wouldn’t be a problem. He would beat qualified immunity. But here they have been hiding behind the protection of the federal government. Even though they were in fact state and local cops enforcing state and local laws. If this is allowed, I think we’ll see much more of this federal deputization, just to allow local police to violate the constitution without consequences. That can’t happen.
On March 10, the West Virginia State Police Special Response Team executed a search warrant in McDowell County, West Virginia and shot 21 year old Darius Lester multiple times. Yesterday I went and met Darius and his family and examined the scene of the shooting. The truth is far from what the state police gave to the news media. Let me tell you what really appears to have happened. By the way, this is the same state police currently all over the news for being exposed as completely untrustworthy, as I just detailed in a recent video.
Here’s what was given to the news media:
One man was injured Friday during an officer involved shooting while troopers with the West Virginia State Police were serving a search warrant.
At about 5:45 a.m., members of the West Virginia State Police SRT acting in cooperation with the FBI served a search warrant at the residence of Jeremy Lester….
Upon entry, members were confronted by Darius Lester, 22 of Big Sandy, who was armed and attempted to attack the members with a hammer. Members engaged the suspect and shots were fired stopping the threat, Maddy said.
First aid was administered on scene until EMS arrived. Darius Lester was transported to Raleigh General Hospital for his injuries.
Here’s what really happened:
Darius had been asleep on the couch in the home’s living room, where he liked to sleep. Darius was unarmed at the time he was shot and was still on his bed, as indicated by the pool of blood on and underneath the couch where he was sleeping. Darius has no criminal record. He was not under arrest. He was not suspected of having committed any crime. He was merely sleeping on the couch in a house where police were executing a search warrant unrelated to him. Darius works as a coal truck driver. He works the night shift. He had just gotten off work at around 4 a.m. He then went to sleep shortly after getting home. Sometime after 5 a.m. the state police SWAT team showed up. Everyone was asleep, including Darius.
I’ve already examined the actual search warrant that formed the basis of the raid. It did not provide for a no knock entry. It also contained no allegations that anyone inside the home was armed or dangerous. In fact, from my understanding, nobody who lived in the home even had a criminal record at all.
Law enforcement was there to execute a search warrant based on the illegal possession of explicit photographs allegedly downloaded by Darius’ uncle. There were no allegations alleged in the warrant application that executing this particular search warrant posed any threat of danger to law enforcement. So why call out the state police’s SWAT team, the SRT? The allegations against the uncle solely pertained to downloading illegal photographs. There was nothing about violence or physical danger to police officers executing a search warrant. It’s my understanding that the uncle had no prior criminal history. Nor were there any allegations at all against Darius.
The press release said that “upon entry” they encountered Darius, who had a hammer. Well, the photographs I took yesterday show where Darius was when they encountered him: asleep on the couch in the living room, which is quite a ways from where they made entry. They would have made entry and rounded the corner into the living room before encountering him and waking him up, flashlights in his eyes, probably startled and confused.
The photographs of the blood stains show where the violence occurred – right on the bed/couch where Darius had been sleeping.
Why would Darius attack a SWAT team with a hammer? That’s absurd. He wasn’t under arrest. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Perhaps it’s more likely that once they realized they shot an unarmed man, who wasn’t even the target of their investigation, they grabbed a nearby hammer and came up with a cover story for why they shot him. Why would a SWAT team in full body armor be in fear for their lives of a guy, with no criminal record or charges, allegedly holding a hammer – especially one in his own bed. Are they that afraid? I mean, really? A hammer?
I’ve dealt with the West Virginia State Police SRT team before. I had a case in federal court in the Northern District of West Virginia – up in Doddridge County, where the state police SRT busted in on an elderly guy, who likewise had done nothing wrong (they were looking for a third party fugitive who used to work for him) and they literally scared the guy to death.
They put him in handcuffs and made him stand in his kitchen. The old man, in poor health, began having trouble breathing and asked to be released from his handcuffs. The tough guy state trooper, wearing full body armor and holding a machine gun (literally a machine gun, as it was full auto) refused, because as he explained to me when I deposed him, there were officer safety concerns, because they were in a kitchen. And there were sharp knives around. I’m not even joking. The man died and they just put him no the floor and began to take crime scene photos.
That was the case where part of the settlement was that the West Virginia State Police agreed to retrain their entire agency about the constitutional requirement to knock and announce prior to busting in someone’s house on a search warrant execution.
This seems awfully similar. I mean, what’s the point of having a SWAT team if you don’t get to use it from time to time, am I right? In my prior case there were, I believe, 17 different SWAT guys at the scene. I wonder how many they had here, that were so afraid of an innocent guy with a hammer? Even if he did have a hammer, perhaps if you didn’t bust in in the darkness and startle the guy out of a deep sleep, he wouldn’t have grabbed a hammer. Though I highly doubt he ever did. The evidence at the scene points to the gunshots occurring while Darius was still on his bed.
What really happened? Could it have been an accident? A mistake? Maybe they thought he was the uncle and nobody would care, given the allegations against him? One thing’s for sure. If there had been body cam, we wouldn’t have to speculate.
There’s no doubt that the case law would justify the police shooting someone coming at them with a hammer. There have been numerous similar cases with those allegations. The question is, did that even happen?
As discussed in some of the recent state police scandal videos, one of the allegations against the top brass of the state police is that they make the lower tier guys wear and use body cams, while the important people don’t have to. All the street level state troopers now have and use body cams. Why would the state police’s SWAT team not be given body cams? That would make it really easy. Does the footage show a guy running at them with a hammer and refusing to drop it? Or does it not? If the situation is so important and dangerous that they need to use the SWAT team, why does it not justify the use of body cams?
I’ll go ahead and speculate that they chose not to use them just in case they end up shooting someone like this. Then they can just grab a nearby object and say the guy was holding it, and refused to drop it. The South Park “he’s coming right at us” defense. Then, when it gets to court, they’re wearing their uniforms and fancy hats and they hope that the jurors will take their word over the victim’s word. That should be unnecessary. It should have been caught on video. Maybe it was, but the preliminary information suggests that there is no body cam footage.
This is yet another example of a completely unnecessary shooting of an innocent unarmed citizen by our government. For those of you with the thin blue line stickers and all the pro-Constitution stickers at the same time, this is your government. This is who is going to come to your house and confiscate your guns when the time comes. This is how they will treat you as well. NRA sticker on your truck? You better believe they’ll show up to your house at 5 am also, at a time when they think you’ll be asleep. They’ll be trigger happy too, since they’ll have been briefed on how much of a gun nut you are. This is where we are in this country. This is the road we’re headed down.
Then, after your government shoots you, what do they do next? Well, if you survive, guess what? They charge you with a crime to cover their exposure to a civil lawsuit. That’s exactly what they have done to Darius here. They’ve charged him with a felony, for allegedly attempting to harm this poor vulnerable SWAT team with a ball peen hammer. And he was so successful at it that no officers were even injured. To the contrary, the perpetrated was shot multiple times, including two rounds to the chest.
Why do they do this? Because any subsequent civil rights lawsuit is going to be bound by any factual findings contained in the underlying criminal case. So if they convict Darius of attempting to hit a police officer with a hammer, that fact will have to be taken as true by the federal court in the subsequent civil lawsuit.
Also, don’t worry, the West Virginia State Police is investigating themselves. This is the same agency that is currently all over the news for literally refusing to properly investigate themselves.
Again, this is a poor area of West Virginia that has for years been neglected by politicians. Corruption has been rampant in this area for years. That’s why it’s important to bring attention to what’s happening and watch very carefully.
One of the excessive force cases we’ve been following just settled, and you may or may not be surprised at the settlement amount. This is the one in Kentucky where a man was arrested inside his parents’ home and was beaten – not terribly – but still beaten, by two Kentucky State Troopers. Then the dad goes to get his cell phone and starts filming. The troopers then took the phone and deleted the footage. Well, as sometimes happens, the parents had interior surveillance cameras that the cops did not know about. My buddy Chris Wiest files a lawsuit against them; puts them under oath at their depositions, and asks them about it. Both troopers denied striking the guy. Unfortunately for them, they had been caught on camera.
On April 9, 2020, Kentucky State Troopers James Cameron Wright, Thomas Czartorski, and a third trooper, Kevin Dreisbach, went to the Hornbacks’ home in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, to arrest 29-year-old Alex Hornback for a missed appearance in Jefferson District Court. Hornback’s mother and father met them at the door and led Wright and Czartorski to the basement, where their son was, while Dreisbach covered the rear of the house.
Czartorski and Wright testified in their January 2021 depositions that they had a relatively calm interaction with Hornback, despite taking him to the floor, and that they didn’t use any other force or strike him.The Hornbacks’ lawyer later released a home-security video contradicting the troopers’ statements. The video showed Wright grabbing Hornback around the neck and slinging him to the floor, though Hornback was not visibly resisting. The video also showed Czartorski striking Hornback four times on the legs with his flashlight. Wright hit Hornback twice in the back with his right forearm and appeared to have his left knee on Hornback’s neck, pushing his face into the floor. Hornback did not suffer any serious injuries.
New bodycam footage just released out of Raleigh, North Carolina, where I once worked as a prosecutor, showing police officers encountering, detaining and using force on Darryl Tyree Williams on January 17, 2023. That use of force, involving multiple uses of tasers, by multiple officers, resulted in the death of Mr. Williams.
What I want to focus on is not the actual tasing part. You know how that goes. But rather, whether it was constitutional for him to have been detained and handcuffed in the first place. Nobody had reported a crime. Rather, the officers were allegedly engaged in what they called “proactive patrols” of business parking lots in a location they claim “has a history of repeat calls for service for drugs, weapons, and other criminal violations.”
This is an important constitutional issue. When did the seizure take place? When were Fourth Amendment protections first triggered here? It depends on the facts, and in this case, the footage.
You have two different scenarios for these types of police encounters:
1) consensual encounters, which are theoretically voluntary in nature – meaning that the suspects are free to leave at any time. This does not trigger Fourth Amendment protections; and then you have
2) a detainment, which does trigger Fourth Amendment protections. For a lawful detainment, officers must have reasonable suspicion of a crime. That did not exist, according to the report, until after the door was opened.
So, if the occupants in the car were already detained prior to the officer observing the open container and marijuana, they were being illegally detained from the very beginning. The issue here is a factual one.
As a general matter, police officers are free to approach and question individuals without necessarily effecting a seizure. Rather, a person is seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment “[o]nly when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen.” Id. (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 19 n.16 (1968)).
Such a seizure can be said to occur when, after considering the totality of the circumstances, the Court concludes that “a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.” Id. (quoting United States v. Gray, 883 F.2d 320, 322 (4th Cir. 1989)).
Similarly, when police approach a person at a location that they do not necessarily wish to leave, the appropriate question is whether that person would feel free to “terminate the encounter.” See Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 436 (1991). “[T]he free-to-leave standard is an objective test, not a subjective one.” United States v. Analla, 975 F.2d 119, 124 (4th Cir. 1992).5… (United States v. Nestor (N.D. W.Va. 2018)).
These are relevant facts to examine:
T]he number of police officers present during the encounter, whether they were in uniform or displayed their weapons, whether they touched the defendant, whether they attempted to block his departure or restrain his movement, whether the officers’ questioning was non-threatening, and whether they treated the defendant as though they suspected him of “illegal activity rather than treating the encounter as ‘routine’ in nature.”… (United States v. Nestor (N.D. W.Va. 2018))
Breaking news out of federal court in South Carolina, where a federal jury has just awarded a $550,000 verdict against a former Richland County Sheriff’s deputy, as well as the sheriff’s department itself.
Here are the relevant case documents, including the complaint, jury instructions, verdict form, as well as the full deposition transcript of one of the officers:
Earlier this year, deputies with the Warren County Sheriff’s Department in Virginia attempted a traffic stop on a 77 year old man named Ralph Ennis, who was apparently suffering from dementia. He didn’t stop, but instead drove to a gas station. An officer from a different agency, the Front Royal Police Department, captured what happened on his body cam.
The footage shows a deputy slamming the elderly man’s head against a truck while pinning his arms behind his back. A second deputy then tackles the man to the ground, hitting the man’s head on the concrete.
“Please let me up!” the man cried out, with two officers on top of him. “Let me go!” Just prior to all the violence, the video shows that all the man did was to get out of his car and walk towards the deputies with his keys in his hand.
The Front Royal officer was clearly shaken by what he saw and said so while his body cam was still recording, as he left the scene. USA Today reported on the aftermath. The elderly man was apparently then hospitalized with a brain bleed. He would never get out of the hospital. He died about two weeks later.
Let me repeat what I just said a few videos ago: there are two kinds of people in this world; those who support the “he deserved it defense,” and those who support the Constitution unconditionally. Those who are willing to allow police officers to bend the rules, so long as the victim deserved it, in their eyes, haven’t fully thought things through.
Case in point: Your usual Fourth Amendment Fudd, who is the same guy that thinks the Second Amendment protects his bolt action .30-06, but not your AR-15, is okay with the police beating someone unnecessarily who chose to lead the cops on a pursuit. The same Fourth Amendment Fudd who is okay allowing police officers the discretion to mete out their version of justice with no due process, however is NOT okay with the cops beating his elderly father with dementia who had no idea what was actually happening. If you allow one, then you have chosen to allow the other. By definition. You either protect all constitutional rights, or you protect none.
This is just one of many recent incidents involving police officers and elderly people with dementia. Police officers have been enabled to fly-off the handle at the slightest perceived threat to their authority. They have been enabled to fly-off the handle on the basis of perceived threats to officer safety. They have been authorized to act like robots; to attack at the slightest provocation, without compassion for those they’re entrusted to serve and protect.
The law assumes that police officers will make mistakes; that they will have bad information, or misunderstand the situation. The law judges them objectively – not based on what they actually thought or intended, but based on how a reasonable officer would act in the same circumstances.
And here’s the problem. Most of us would look at those circumstances, including good police officers, such as the guy wearing the body cam in this footage, and say, “hell no.” We are not robots. We are supposed to be able to adapt; to deal with different types of people in different scenarios. What would happen if a confused old man walked into a bank, holding his keys in his hand. Would he be immediately tackled and handcuffed by security? Or would any competent person recognize that they’re dealing with an elderly man who might be confused? Does it ever cross the mind of a reasonable police officer that a vehicle may not be stopping because it’s an elderly driver who is confused or suffering from dementia? I would argue that a reasonable officer should be concerned first with protecting and serving an elderly man.
As the U.S. population ages and more people develop dementia, older people are increasingly running into problems with the police. There’s no national count of how many people with dementia are arrested each year. But an analysis of U.S. crime data by The Marshall Project shows that the number of arrests of people over 65 grew by nearly 30% between 2000 and 2020 – at the same time that overall arrests fell by nearly 40%. The number of elder arrests is growing faster than the population is aging. National data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also estimates that from 2010 to 2020, more than 12,000 people 65 and older ended up in a hospital emergency room for injuries caused by police or private security.
Unfortunately, police officers are not taught to think about the citizen. They are taught to only think about officer safety. It’s drilled into them. Citizen safety is last. That’s our problem. But “officer safety” is not mentioned anywhere in our Constitution. Where it exists is in police officer training. Instead, police officers should be trained in how to help people. They are the ones who wanted to be in a public service job. That’s what it’s about. It’s not about them being scared. If they’re scared, go find another job.
