Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca2-14-02611/USCOURTS-ca2-14-02611-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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DENNIS JACOBS, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment in part and

dissenting in part:

I concur in the judgment insofar as the majority affirms dismissal of the

First Amendment retaliation claim and the claim for false arrest.

As to the claim of excessive force, the majority remands for a jury trial to

determine whether the officers’ use of force, in restraining a suspect who was

actively resisting arrest, was so objectively unreasonable that it violated the

Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution--and, accordingly, whether

two officers of the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) should be

personally liable to her for money damages. From that regrettable decision, I

respectfully dissent.

I

As the majority characterizes its recitation of the facts, those in dispute are

presented “in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff, Imani Brown.” Maj. Op. at

3. But the only facts relevant to the use of force are undisputed, and are captured

by high-quality video footage. The majority essentially concedes as much. See

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Maj. Op. at 16 (“Unusual for a claim of excessive force, most of the relevant facts

are undisputed.”). As to the visual record, “[t]here are no allegations . . . that this

videotape was doctored or altered in any way, nor any contention that what it

depicts differs from what actually happened.” Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378

(2007). Brown’s excessive force claim therefore must be considered at summary

judgment “in the light depicted by the videotape.” Id. at 380-81. 

Brown’s claim does not survive the witness of your eyes. Since I am

“happy to allow the videotape to speak for itself,” id. at 378 n.5, I have made the

footage available online. A textual play-by-play of the video is supplied in an 1

Appendix to this opinion. As to the use of force, the only source of the facts I rely

upon (other than the video) is Brown’s own testimony.

The majority and I mostly agree on what happened in the prequel to the

video. Around 5 a.m., the manager of a Starbucks in lower Manhattan called 911. 

The Starbucks had not yet opened, and people were banging on the glass

 The clearest, longest video is available at the following link: 1

http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/Docs/Pl's_Ex%2018_OWSCraigCard7-65.mp4 

See Ex. 18 to Decl. of. Joshua S. Moskovitz (“Video”). Two shorter videos

provide some additional context. See Ex. L to Decl. of Andrew Lucas; Ex. 20 to

Decl. of. Joshua S. Moskovitz. All of the video footage is available for download

on the “Multimedia Resources” section of the Court website’s “Decisions” page. 

See http://www.ca2.uscourts.gov/multimedia_resources.html

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demanding access to the bathroom. The coffee shop was five blocks from

Zuccotti Park, where anti-Wall Street demonstrators had been camped for some

days. Two NYPD officers were despatched to the Starbucks. They parked close

by, and observed a group gathered in front of the coffee shop. Brown

approached the police car and made known that she was among those seeking

entry; specifically, she asked police guidance about where she could find an open

bathroom. Apparently, the police did not consider giving such advice to be

among their duties. When Brown went back to the door, the police approached

her. As the majority concludes, the police had at least arguable probable cause

for arrest.

When the police asked her for identification, she balked, and thereby

prevented the encounter from being resolved on the basis of a summons. When

the officers then demanded that Brown present her hands to be cuffed for arrest,

she again balked, this time grabbing hold of a metal bar of the scaffolding erected

in front of the store. The video begins there.

As the video evidences: Brown resisted arrest; the police subdued her

using modulated, graduated levels of force; she was warned at each stage what

measure would follow; she was spoken to with forceful professionalism

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throughout; the first short release of pepper spray was preceded by a warning;

the pepper spray had no apparent effect on her resistance; she was warned that a

further burst would be administered; she was undeterred; and only shortly after

the second application did she allow her hands to be cuffed. After she complied,

she was lead to the back seat of a police car; when she emerged a few moments

later, her hands were no longer cuffed together. As she admitted at deposition,

she fully understood the orders that she resisted:

Q. In sum and substance, were they telling you to give them your

hands?

A. Yes.

Q. In sum and substance, were they telling you to stop resisting?

A. They did, yes.

Ex. F to Lucas Decl. (“Dep. of Imani Brown”), 52:25-53:5. That documented

sequence of events is all that is needed to affirm summary judgment on the

excessive-force claim.

The majority opinion does not actually question that storyline, but it injects

criticisms of police technique and tone that seem to me mostly irrelevant, and

awfully unfair:

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! The majority compares Brown’s height and weight (and sex) to the

height and weight (and sex) of the two policemen, with more than a

suggestion that their struggle to subdue her was unsporting and

unchivalrous or (alternatively) insufficiently masterful and

competent. See, e.g., Maj. Op. at 21 (criticizing the police for “taking

a 120-pound woman to the ground and twice spraying her directly

in the face with pepper spray”); see also id. at 17 (listing Brown’s

and the officers’ height and weight). The size comparison sharply

cuts the other way, of course. Brown was outnumbered by trained

NYPD officers who were bigger than she was: the easy inference is

that, but for their professional restraint, they could have subdued

her promptly and completely with effortless brutality.

 

! The majority cites the answers made by the NYPD officers to

Brown’s request for guidance on local toilet facilities. One answered,

“What do we look like, the potty police?” The other suggested she

“piss in the park.” (Of course, as had been widely reported, Zuccotti

Park had been turned into something like an open sewer by those

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who had been encamped there; so the police responses might be

deemed a commentary on Brown and the others in her group. The

police should be free to perceive irony from a self-imagined

revolutionary against corporate America who was begging relief at

Starbucks Corporation.) But rudeness or sarcasm (even excessive

rudeness or sarcasm) is not force, let alone excessive force. 

! The majority faults the police for not resolving the encounter on the

basis of a summons. But it was Brown’s refusal to identify herself

that foreclosed that option. The majority thinks the police should

have then explained why they wanted her name, and assumes

(without basis) that it is “very likely,” Maj. Op. at 9, that the

encounter would have resolved itself peacefully had this information

been adequately communicated. But it was sufficiently obvious why

the police wanted identification; she could scarcely have thought

that they wanted to send her tickets to the policemen’s ball. 

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! The majority implies that the pepper spray was held too close to

Brown, and that good policing technique would call for more

distance. See Maj. Op. at 18 (citing the New York City Police

Department Patrol Guide). But at least the first burst was issued

when the officer holding the can was holding on to Brown at the

same time, so that he could not have further distanced the spray-can

without a selfie stick. In any event, we are not interpreting the

NYPD Patrol Guide, but the United States Constitution, which has

nothing to say about the optimal distance from which an officer

should discharge pepper spray during a physical struggle. 

Moreover, the first discharge was insufficient to overcome

resistance; the second eventually subdued her; and at the precinct

afterward, she declined the opportunity to wash out her eyes.

! My colleagues lament that the whole episode could have been

avoided if the police had done this or that, or used some other

technique. Maj. Op. at 9, 10 n.6, 21. But surely the but-for cause of

the tussle was Brown, her refusal to give pedigree information

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needed for a summons, and her dogged resistance to the lawful

arrest she had provoked by her violation of the law.

In summary, the police had probable cause to arrest; they were refused

identification that could have obviated any physical encounter; and they applied

modulated force and gave warnings in advance at each step, treating Brown with

all the courtesy a criminal suspect can reasonably ask for while physically

resisting arrest. Moreover, the entire encounter, from first to last, apparently had

little adverse effect on Brown, physically or psychologically. When she arrived at

the police station, she explicitly refused medical assistance. Asked by a member

of the Emergency Medical Services team if she wanted her eyes rinsed, Brown

declined.

The day after her arrest, Brown was happily claiming the glamor of having

spent a night in jail after resisting arrest. In an online chat with a friend, Brown

gloated:

Friend: imanii you aiight?

Brown: yeah

Brown: I was maced and shit tho

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Friend: woahh

Friend: u jusst refused to move?

Brown: yes it’s a long story

Brown: I resisted arrest

Ex. 1 to Supp. Decl. of Andrew Lucas. The next day, another friend asked Brown

if she planned to return to the protests:

Friend: are you going to keep protesting?

Brown: of course

Brown: I just was going to lay low tonight

Brown: I was just released yesterday am

Brown: but now I’m regretting going home

Brown: I want to be out there!

Ex. 2 to Supp. Decl. of Andrew Lucas.

II

“The Fourth Amendment prohibits the use of unreasonable and therefore

excessive force by a police officer in the course of effecting an arrest.” Tracy v.

Freshwater, 623 F.3d 90, 96 (2d Cir. 2010). In deciding whether a particular use of

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force was reasonable, we look to the totality of the circumstances, “including 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.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396

(1989). Some of those factors might be helpful (or not) in a given case, but the

ultimate question is always the same: “whether the officers’ actions are

‘objectively reasonable’ in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them.” 

Id. at 397. In the end, “all that matters is whether [the officers’] actions were

reasonable.” Scott, 550 U.S. at 383.

“[W]e are careful to evaluate the record ‘from the perspective of a

reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.’” 

Tracy, 623 F.3d at 96 (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396). “‘Not every push or

shove, even if it may later seem unnecessary in the peace of a judge’s chambers,’

violates the Fourth Amendment.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396 (quoting Johnson v.

Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1033 (2d Cir. 1973) (Friendly, J.)).

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III

Brown actively resisted throughout the process of her arrest. For that 2

reason--even that reason standing alone--the officers were permitted to use force

to subdue her, as a matter of law: “[t]he fact that a person whom a police officer

attempts to arrest resists, threatens, or assaults the officer no doubt justifies the

officer’s use of some degree of force.” Sullivan v. Gagnier, 225 F.3d 161, 165-66

(2d Cir. 2000) (first emphasis added); see also Tracy, 623 F.3d at 97 (“Tracy

appeared to fail to comply with a direct order and to instead actively resist arrest,

thus necessitating a forceful response.”).

At the same time, resistance to arrest “does not give the officer license to

use force without limit.” Sullivan, 225 F.3d at 166. When a suspect resists arrest,

“[t]he force used by the officer must be reasonably related to the nature of the

resistance and the force used, threatened, or reasonably perceived to be

threatened, against the officer.” Id.

 In an online chat, Brown admitted: “I resisted arrest.” Ex. 1 to Supp. Decl. 2

of Andrew Lucas. The majority, however, hedges on that point, resorting to

scare quotes. See Maj. Op. at 19-20 (“At most, her ‘resistance’ was a refusal to

permit the easy application of handcuffs by placing her hands behind her back.”). 

Scare quotes or none, any denial that Brown was resisting arrest “is so utterly

discredited by the record that no reasonable jury could . . . believe [it].” Scott, 550

U.S. at 380.

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No reasonable jury could find an abuse in this case--let alone misconduct

so unreasonable as to justify “personal liability” against Officer Justin Naimoli

and Officer Theodore Plevritis, which, as this Court has said, is payable from the

officers’ “savings, home equity, and [their children’s] college funds.” Gonzalez v.

City of Schenectady, 728 F.3d 149, 162 (2d Cir. 2013). The majority relies on what

it calls “likely speculation” that “a payment, if any, will be made by the City after

a settlement.” Maj. Op. at 23-24 n.15. Of course, we typically and appropriately

adopt an attitude of complete indifference to the questions of (1) whether a case

is likely to settle, and (2) what private arrangements, if any, defendants may have

entered into to spread the (potentially ruinous) financial risk of an adverse civil

judgment. The majority’s expectation that the City will both settle this case and

then indemnify the officers may alleviate somewhat the danger of inflicting

personal liability on the police officers; but it warps application of the legal

standard, which ceases to be individual liability under section 1983. See, e.g.,

Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 676 (“Because vicarious liability is inapplicable to

Bivens and § 1983 suits, a plaintiff must plead that each Government-official

defendant, through the official’s own individual actions, has violated the

Constitution.”).

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IV

The use of pepper spray was the climax of Brown’s encounter with the

police, and ultimately ended her resistance. “Unquestionably, infliction of

pepper spray on an arrestee has a variety of incapacitating and painful effects.” 

Tracy, 623 F.3d at 98. That is of course its utility. “[A]s such, its use constitutes a

significant degree of force.” Id. So “it should not be used lightly or gratuitously

against an arrestee who is complying with police commands or otherwise poses

no immediate threat to the arresting officer.” Id.

But Brown was not complying with the officers’ (lawful) commands--she

was energetically resisting arrest. That fact, standing alone, will typically justify

the use of significant force, including pepper spray. But here, the bursts of

pepper spray were preceded by several minutes of physical resistance, repeated

orders to “Stop resisting!”, and then specific warnings about pepper spray--“GIVE

US YOUR HANDS, OR YOU’RE GONNA GET PEPPER SPRAYED RIGHT

NOW! GIVE US YOUR HANDS!”--all of which failed to subdue Brown. And as

Brown admitted at deposition, she understood the officers’ warning that she

would be pepper sprayed a second time if she did not offer her hands. See Dep.

of Imani Brown 54:21-24 (“Q: The second time you were pepper sprayed, did the

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officers warn you that if you did not give them your hands you would be pepper

sprayed? A: Yes.”). The second burst of pepper spray was apparently the

measure that worked: she finally offered her arms, at least in part, because she

“was in physical pain” and she “didn’t want to be pepper sprayed again.” Dep.

of Imani Brown, 56:11-15. Thereafter, the officers applied only minimal physical

force. 

The police can, in their discretion, resort to non-lethal, but serious, threats

of force, in order to stop (or better yet, prevent) a suspect from resisting arrest. 

But such a threat will only be effective if officers are permitted to actually use the

threatened force. We should not constitutionally require police to back off just

because a lawful arrest encounters stubborn physical resistance. Cf. Scott, 550

U.S. at 385-86 (“[W]e are loath to lay down a rule requiring the police to allow

fleeing suspects to get away whenever they drive so recklessly that they put

other people’s lives in danger. . . . The Constitution assuredly does not impose

this invitation to impunity-earned-by-recklessness.”) (emphasis omitted). It is

eminently reasonable for an officer to (1) warn a resisting suspect that the level of

force is about to be marginally escalated, then (2) actually use the force

threatened when resistance continues. Reasonableness is all that the Fourth

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Amendment requires; and reasonableness is a test that, at the safe end, is a matter

of law. See, e.g, Tracy, 623 F.3d at 97. 

In Tracy v. Freshwater, an arrestee named Tracy got into a struggle with a

policeman named Freshwater. Id. at 97-98. The issue critical to the excessive

force claim was whether Tracy was already handcuffed when Freshwater

pepper-sprayed his face. See id. at 98. We remanded for a trial because “a

reasonable juror could [have found] that the use of pepper spray deployed mere

inches away from the face of a defendant already in handcuffs and offering no

further active resistance constituted an unreasonable use of force.” Id. (emphasis

added). This case is the mirror image of Tracy. We know from the video that

Brown was not “already in handcuffs.” Id. And, as she admitted--and is obvious

from the video--she was “offering . . . further active resistance,” id., when the

officers (1) threatened to use pepper spray, and then (2) made good on that

threat.

No material fact is genuinely disputed. No trial is necessary.

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V

As the majority ultimately concedes, there is no “least restrictive

alternative” requirement when making an arrest: “Police officers must be entitled

to make a reasonable selection among alternative techniques for making an

arrest.” Maj. Op. at 21. Certainly, the police are not restricted to the measures

and techniques suggested to us in “the peace of a judge’s chambers,” Graham,

490 U.S. at 396 (internal quotation marks omitted)--pace the majority’s preference

for other measures, see Maj. Op. at 9, 10 n.6, 21.

The majority opinion relies on its weighing of the three Graham factors--a

determination that is, as the majority observes, “easier to describe than to make.” 

Maj. Op. at 19. However, Graham itself confirms that these factors are intended

to be a rough guide, and nothing more. They need not all be examined closely in

every case; other unlisted factors might be relevant; and the relative importance

of any one factor will vary. 490 U.S. at 396 (“the test of reasonableness . . .

requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case,

including” the three factors) (emphasis added); see also Tracy, 623 F.3d at 96 (in

evaluating reasonableness, “we are guided by consideration of at least three

factors”) (emphases added). That is because, ultimately, “all that matters is

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whether [the officer’s] actions were reasonable.” Scott, 550 U.S. at 383. We

consider the Graham factors only to the extent they shed light on whether a

particular use of force was reasonable.

The majority emphasizes “the severity of the crime at issue,” Graham, 490

U.S. at 396, and observes that Brown’s “disorderly conduct offense is subject to a

maximum penalty of fifteen days in jail.” Maj. Op. at 19. But unless the

Constitution requires the police to free suspects resisting arrest for minor

offenses, this factor is of no weight in this case, in which the police began by

seeking pedigree information for a summons, and overcame physical resistance

by calibrated steps, preceded by warnings, without gratuitous violence.

The one Graham factor that obviously and directly applies here is whether

the suspect “is actively resisting arrest.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. That factor is

essentially ignored by the majority, which observes dismissively that “Brown

was not fleeing, nor physically attacking an officer, nor even making a move that

an officer could reasonably interpret as threatening an attack.” Maj. Op. at 19

(internal citations omitted). So? She was also not brushing her teeth. What she

was doing, however, was “actively resisting arrest”; and she did that by physical

struggle for as long as she possibly could. Even though this factor is not

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dispositive (none of the Graham factors is), it strongly supports the use of force

here.

The majority also believes that we need a jury to decide whether it was

excessive force to wrestle Brown to the ground and then “struggle[] with her” in

order to apply handcuffs. See Maj. Op. at 22 (“[A] jury will have to decide

whether Fourth Amendment reasonableness was exceeded when Brown was

taken to the ground after refusing to put her hands behind her back and when

officers struggled with her on the ground and used pepper spray to accomplish

handcuffing.”). But the fact that a suspect “actively resist[s] arrest,” by itself,

“necessitat[es] a forceful response.” Tracy, 623 F.3d at 97. That includes

forcefully bringing her to the sidewalk, the ensuing struggle, and more--as

necessary to effect the arrest.

According to the majority, “[n]o reason appears why, with Brown

standing, each officer could not have simply held one of her arms, brought it

behind her, and put handcuffs on her wrists.” Maj. Op. at 21. But the video

shows why the police took her to the ground: Brown refused to give up her

hands, and instead grabbed hold of the metal structure of a scaffolding. In her

own words: “I was standing there and not offering them my arms.” Dep. of

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Imani Brown, 50:13-14. The majority has no fair ground for offering technical

advice on whether it would have been better and safer if the police had pried

back Brown’s fingers one-by-one off the metal bar, or used any other forceful

method that might have exposed Brown (or the officers) to different risks. In any

event, the relevant question is whether the use of force was objectively

reasonable--not whether judges can identify alternative methods. The

Constitution does not enforce a preference among techniques short of excessive

force.

* * *

The only excessive features of this case are the elaborate

constitutionalization of the routine arrest of a disorderly individual, the unfair

attack on the professional reputation of two NYPD officers, the absurd waste of

judicial time that has ensued and will follow on remand, and the imposition on

the valuable time of jurors.

APPENDIX

The video begins in the middle of the encounter. Just after 5 a.m., at the

intersection of Barclay and Broadway in lower Manhattan, Brown is standing on

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a sidewalk. She is facing away from a Starbucks coffee shop, leaning against

metal scaffolding. Two NYPD officers, Officer Justin Naimoli and Officer

Theodore Plevritis, stand behind her, working to restrain her arms.

Officer Plevritis shouts to a bystander: “No! She’s under arrest!” Brown is

holding a cell phone and a purse in her right hand. She pulls her right arm in

toward her body, but Officer Naimoli is able to close metal handcuffs around her

right wrist. Turning her body 90 degrees to the left, now facing Officer Plevritis,

Brown yells: “I just need to use the fucking bathroom!” She slowly unwinds her

body, turning back the right, and pulls her left arm free momentarily. Officer

Plevritis reaches to pull Brown’s free arm back within reach, telling her, in a

measured tone: “Stop moving your arms. Stop resisting, miss. Stop resisting. 

Miss, stop resisting.”

Brown does not stop resisting. She grabs the metal scaffolding with her

free hand. Officer Plevritis reaches down, presumably to pry her grip loose from

the scaffold, when she twirls once more, 180 degrees to the right, and steps back

toward the Starbucks. Officer Plevritis tells her: “Alright, you are going to the

ground now.”

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Officer Naimoli starts to apply pressure to the front of her legs, while both

officers, standing behind her, push her shoulders forward, well above her center

of gravity. Officer Naimoli appears unable to take her to the ground, so Officer

Plevritis winds up, and swings his leg forcefully into Brown’s shins. The laws of

physics do their work: Brown’s body rotates forward, her waist the approximate

pivot point. For an instant, she is parallel to the sidewalk, a few feet off the

ground. Then she falls. See Video at 0:20.

The struggle continues. After rolling on the ground a bit, Brown coils into

a crouch, knees on the ground, leaning forward. Both officers hover over her

back. Officer Plevritis appears to have a solid grasp of Brown’s left arm, and he

pulls it up behind her, bent sharply at the elbow. Brown then springs half-way

up out of her crouched position, and waddles forward, with both officers holding

on to her back and arms. Brown is quiet at this point, but a crowd is gathering,

and someone shouts, off-camera: “Officers, can you please let her go? Can you

please let her go?” Both officers, sometimes in unison, repeatedly order Brown to

give up her hands, and to stop resisting: “Put your han . . . Stop it. Stop resisting,

Miss. Stop resisting. Stop resisting. Stop resisting. Stop it ma’am. Stop

resisting. Stop resisting.”

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A voice crackles over the radio, and Officer Plevritis lets go of Brown’s left

arm--which remains free of handcuffs--to reach back for the radio on his hip. The

crowd growing larger, he calls for assistance: “Can I have another unit over here

to this location?” Officer Plevritis tries to regain his grip over Brown’s left arm,

but she wriggles free again, and rolls over back to the ground. For a brief

moment, Brown tucks her free arm back underneath her body. “Miss, stop

resisting.” Brown asks: “What am I doing to you?”

The officers escalate their use of force: Officer Plevritis yells, “Stop it!”, as

he strikes Brown in the lower back with his knee. “Don’t kick me,” she says. 

Officer Naimoli then makes two sweeping movements with his left arm,

seemingly trying to dislodge Brown’s grip from her purse, or her cell phone. The

phone ends up on the sidewalk, a few feet away. The officers continue to plead

with Brown to comply, now employing a louder, more aggressive tone: “Stop

resisting! Stop it! Stop resisting!”3

 At some point, the camera briefly turns away from the struggle to a friend 3

of Brown’s, who describes what happened in the moments preceding the arrest. 

His commentary is largely irrelevant to the excessive force claim, but it does go a

long way to confirming that Brown was one of the individuals banging on the

glass--rather than some unfortunate victim of mistaken identity:

She wanted to use the bathroom at Starbucks. She was banging on

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Brown continues to struggle with the officers from the ground. The

officers are trying to pull her hands together behind her back, so the handcuffs,

currently hanging around her right wrist, can be secured to her left. Officer

Naimoli says, “Don’t try to bite me!” It is not clear from the video whether, in

fact, Brown was trying to bite anyone, but she responds, exasperated: “I’m not

trying to bite you!” For a moment, Officer Plevritis holds her head against the

sidewalk.

Members of the (still growing) crowd chime in from time to time: “What’s

the point of doing this?” Then, sarcastically mocking the NYPD’s motto:

“Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect!” Officer Naimoli responds in kind: “Yep,

she’s giving us her respect.” 

The struggle continues, and Brown says something like “I’m just trying . . .

to pull my . . .”--then she tries to rise to a kneeling position. The officers wrestle

her back to the ground, and Brown lets out a brief whimper. Officer Plevritis is

trying to pull her left arm behind her back, but Brown has it planted securely

the door, asking them to use their discretion and let her go to the

bathroom, and they called the police on her. . . .

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underneath her body. The officers raise the intensity and the volume of their

voices once more: “STOP RESISTING!”

Brown does not stop resisting. She continues to struggle. The officers then

threaten to escalate the level of force again, now shouting loudly: “GIVE US

YOUR HANDS, OR YOU’RE GONNA GET PEPPER SPRAYED RIGHT NOW! 

GIVE US YOUR HANDS!” See Video at 1:36.

Brown does not give up her hands. She continues to struggle for the next 8

or 9 seconds--the time it takes Officer Plevritis to reach back and unholster his

pepper spray. He sprays Brown in the face, from about a foot away, for about

one second. See Video at 1:48.

For a moment, Brown appears to be going back to the ground. Her skirt is

off-kilter; her bare buttocks briefly exposed to the gathering crowd. Someone offcamera asks an (inaudible) question, to which Officer Plevritis responds, loud

and frustrated: “How about putting her hands behind her back?!” Brown then

starts rocking back and forth from her knees, as the crowd pulls in tighter around

the struggling trio. Officer Plevritis reacts by letting Brown go, springing to his

feet, and yelling at the crowd: “Get away from here! Back up! Back up! Back up! 

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Everyone back up!” Officer Naimoli is now alone in his attempted restraint of

the (still-struggling) Brown.

From her knees, Brown continues the rocking motion. Her hands remain

in front of her, only her right wrist in cuffs. Officer Plevritis shouts again: “Stop

it! Get on the ground!” Brown does not comply. Officer Plevritis, now standing

in front of Brown, warns her: “You are gonna get it again.” But Brown’s behavior

does not change, and Officer Plevritis sprays her with pepper spray a second

time, again in the face, for less than a second, from a distance that is difficult to

discern from the video (no more than one foot). See Video at 2:12. The officers

continue to shout: “Put your hands behind your back! STOP RESISTING! Put

your hands behind your back!” 

Finally, Brown appears to relent. Someone shouts, off-camera: “You guys

are fucking cowards!” At last, the officers secure the handcuffs on Brown’s left

wrist. 

Two new officers appear on camera, apparently having just arrived on the

scene. One shouts loudly and repeatedly at the bystanders (including the camera

operator) to move back. Brown is doubled over on her knees. She shouts,

presumably to the officers: “Can you please pull my skirt down so I’m not

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flashing the fucking street please?” One of the officers tells Brown that she

“should have thought of that,” and orders her to “stand up.” Brown refuses to

cooperate: “No!”, she shouts from the ground. Officers Naimoli and Plevritis

forcibly pull her to a standing position, and walk her, now securely handcuffed,

to a nearby police cruiser. Another officer is still shouting at the nearby

onlookers: “Get back! Move back!” Officer Plevritis orders Brown to “get in the

car” and to “sit down in the car,” as she appears to lean her upper body out of

the door. Officer Plevritis forces her back into the seat, and secures the door.

The footage skips ahead a moment, and Brown is lead out of the car by

Officers Plevritis and Naimoli, while at least three other officers look on (still at

the same intersection). For reasons that are not clear, the handcuffs remain

attached to Brown’s right wrist, but now they dangle alone--her left hand is free

again. Officer Plevritis asks her to “step out and turn around.” Officer Naimoli

tells her to “step out of the car and put your hands behind her back.” This time,

Brown turns around without objection, and offers her hands to be re-handcuffed. 

Officer Plevritis explains: “Now if you would have done this, you wouldn’t have

gotten sprayed.” The officers secure the handcuffs, again, and Brown is

returned, quietly, to the back seat of the police car.

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