Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-22-15344/USCOURTS-ca9-22-15344-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
City of Phoenix

Jacinta Gonzalez Goodman
Appellee
Cynthia Guillen
Appellee
George Herr
Appellant
Jeffrey Howell
Appellant
Douglas McBride
Appellant
Benjamin Moore
Appellant
Glenn Neville

Poder in Action
Appellee
Puente
Appellee
Robert Scott
Appellant
John Sticca

Michael Sullivan

Janet Travis
Appellee
Christopher Turiano
Appellant
Unknown Parties

Lane White

Jeri L. Williams

Ira Yedlin
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

PUENTE, an Arizona nonprofit 

corporation; PODER IN ACTION, an 

Arizona nonprofit corporation; IRA 

YEDLIN; JANET TRAVIS; 

CYNTHIA GUILLEN; JACINTA 

GONZALEZ GOODMAN, 

individually and as class 

representatives, 

Plaintiffs-Appellees, 

 v. 

CITY OF PHOENIX, a municipal 

corporation; MICHAEL SULLIVAN, 

in his official capacity; JERI L. 

WILLIAMS; GLENN NEVILLE; 

JOHN STICCA; LANE WHITE; 

UNKNOWN PARTIES, Does 1-20, 

Defendants, 

and 

BENJAMIN MOORE, individually 

and in their official capacities; 

DOUGLAS MCBRIDE; ROBERT 

SCOTT; CHRISTOPHER TURIANO; 

JEFFREY HOWELL; GEORGE 

HERR, 

No. 22-15344

D.C. No. 2:18-cv02778-JJT

OPINION

Case: 22-15344, 12/19/2024, ID: 12917381, DktEntry: 87-1, Page 1 of 58
2 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

Defendants-Appellants.

PUENTE, an Arizona nonprofit 

corporation; IRA YEDLIN; JANET 

TRAVIS; CYNTHIA GUILLEN; 

JACINTA GONZALEZ GOODMAN, 

individually and as class 

representatives; PODER IN ACTION, 

an Arizona nonprofit corporation, 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

 v. 

CITY OF PHOENIX, a municipal 

corporation; MICHAEL SULLIVAN, 

in his official capacity; BENJAMIN 

MOORE, individually and in his

official capacity; JERI L. WILLIAMS; 

DOUGLAS MCBRIDE; ROBERT 

SCOTT; CHRISTOPHER TURIANO; 

JEFFREY HOWELL; GEORGE 

HERR, 

Defendants-Appellees, 

and 

GLENN NEVILLE; JOHN STICCA; 

LANE WHITE; UNKNOWN 

PARTIES, Does 1-20, 

Defendants.

No. 22-15661 

D.C. No. 2:18-cv02778-JJT 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 3 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Arizona

John Joseph Tuchi, District Judge, Presiding 

Argued and Submitted May 16, 2023 

Phoenix, Arizona 

Filed December 19, 2024 

Before: Jacqueline H. Nguyen, Daniel P. Collins, and 

Kenneth K. Lee, Circuit Judges. 

Opinion by Judge Collins 

SUMMARY*

Civil Rights/Excessive Force

The panel reversed the district court's partial denial of 

summary judgment to Phoenix Police Department (“PPD”) 

defendants and affirmed the district court’s partial grant of 

summary judgment to PPD defendants in an action under 42 

U.S.C. § 1983 brought by two organizations and four 

individuals asserting a variety of claims arising from actions 

that defendants took against political demonstrators 

protesting outside a rally held by then-President Trump at 

the Phoenix Convention Center on August 22, 2017. 

Plaintiffs alleged that defendants violated their 

constitutional rights under the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth 

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has 

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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4 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

Amendments by dispersing protesters through the use of tear 

gas, other chemical irritants, and flash-bang grenades. After 

certifying two distinct classes, the district court ultimately 

granted summary judgment to defendants on all claims 

except for the individual Fourth Amendment excessiveforce claims asserted by three of the individual plaintiffs 

against certain PPD officers. 

The panel affirmed the district court’s summary 

judgment for defendants on the class claims for excessive 

force under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. There 

was no “seizure” of the class members within the meaning 

of the Fourth Amendment because the record showed that 

defendants’ use of airborne and auditory irritants was not 

objectively aimed at restraining the class members, even 

temporarily. Because the class’s excessive-force claims 

arose outside the context of a seizure, the panel evaluated 

those claims under the Fourteenth Amendment shocks-theconscience test rather than the Fourth Amendment’s 

objective reasonableness standard. Given the quickly 

escalating situation, there was no triable issue that the 

officers had an improper purpose to harm rather than 

legitimate law enforcement objectives at the time they 

decided to employ chemical irritants and flash-bang 

grenades to disperse the crowd. 

The panel reversed the district court’s denial of summary 

judgment to the individual defendants on the excessive-force 

damages claims asserted by individual plaintiffs Yedlin, 

Travis and Guillen, who were physically impacted by 

projectiles. The panel held that the officers were entitled to 

qualified immunity because they acted reasonably under the 

circumstances or did not violate clearly established law. 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 5

The panel next affirmed the district court’s summary 

judgment for the individual defendants with respect to the 

First Amendment claims asserted by all plaintiffs, on their 

own behalf, and on behalf of the classes. The individual 

defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because, 

based on the undisputed facts, including the use of 

unidentified gas and pyrotechnic devices by agitators, there 

were sufficient objectively reasonable grounds to establish 

the requisite clear and present danger of an immediate threat 

to public safety, peace, or order. Moreover, there was no 

triable issue that the dispersal of the crowd was undertaken 

with retaliatory intent.

The panel affirmed the district court’s summary 

judgment to Police Chief Williams. Because the panel 

concluded that all of Plaintiffs’ claims either fail or did not 

involve the violation of a clearly established right, Plaintiffs’ 

claims of supervisorial liability necessarily fail. Finally, the 

panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment to the 

City of Phoenix on the municipal liability claim. Plaintiffs 

failed to raise a triable issue that Chief Williams caused or 

ratified the use of excessive force against Guillen or that the 

City was deliberately indifferent to Guillen’s constitutional 

rights.

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6 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

COUNSEL

Gerard J. Cedrone (argued), Goodwin Procter LLP, Boston, 

Massachusetts; Alexis S. Coll, Indra N. Chatterjee, and Yoo 

N. Lee, Goodwin Procter LLP, Redwood City, California; 

Andrew Kim, Goodwin Procter LLP, Washington, D.C.; 

James Nikraftar, Goodwin Procter LLP, Santa Monica, 

California; Kathleen E. Brody, Mitchell Stein Carey 

Chapman PC, Phoenix, Arizona; Darrell Hill and Jared G. 

Keenan, American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, 

Phoenix, Arizona; Paul L. Hoffman, Schonbrun Seplow

Harris Hoffman & Zeldes LLP, Hermosa Beach, California; 

John C. Washington, Schonbrun Seplow Harris Hoffman & 

Zeldes LLP, Los Angeles, California; Barrett S. Litt, 

McLane Bednarski & Litt LLP; Pasadena, California; Dan 

Stormer, Hadsell Stormer & Renick LLP, Pasadena, 

California; Hong-An Vu, Foundation Law Group LLP, Los 

Angeles, California; Cindy Pánuco, Nisha Kashyap, and 

Joanna E. Adler, Public Counsel, Los Angeles, California; 

for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Mary R. O'Grady (argued), David B. Rosenbaum, and 

Joshua J. Messer, Phoenix, Arizona; Steven J. Renick 

(argued), Mildred K. O'Linn, and Scott Wm. Davenport, 

Manning & Kass Ellrod Ramirez Trester LLP, Los Angeles, 

California; for Defendants-Appellants.

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 7

OPINION

COLLINS, Circuit Judge:

In this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, two organizations 

and four individuals assert a variety of claims arising from 

the actions that the Phoenix Police Department (“PPD”) took 

against political demonstrators protesting outside a rally held 

by then-President Trump at the Phoenix Convention Center

on August 22, 2017. In particular, Plaintiffs allege that the 

PPD violated their constitutional rights under the First, 

Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments by dispersing the 

protesters through the use of tear gas, other chemical 

irritants, and “flash-bang grenades” that “produce loud 

explosive noises and bright flashes of light.” After certifying 

two distinct classes—one for certain damages claims and 

another for injunctive relief—the district court ultimately 

granted summary judgment to Defendants on all claims 

except for the individual Fourth Amendment excessiveforce claims asserted by three of the individual Plaintiffs

against certain officers. Those officers have appealed that 

partial denial of summary judgment, arguing that they are 

entitled to qualified immunity. After the district court 

certified its partial judgment against Plaintiffs for immediate 

appeal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b), 

Plaintiffs appealed that judgment as well. We reverse the 

district court’s partial denial of summary judgment to 

Defendants, and we affirm the court’s partial grant of 

summary judgment to Defendants on all remaining claims.

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8 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

I

A

Because this appeal challenges a partial grant and partial 

denial of summary judgment to Defendants, we recite the 

underlying facts by construing the record evidence in the 

light most favorable to Plaintiffs. See O’Doan v. Sanford, 

991 F.3d 1027, 1035 (9th Cir. 2021). 

On August 22, 2017, then-President Trump held a

scheduled rally at the Phoenix Convention Center. After the 

announcement of the rally, various organizations announced 

their intention to protest outside the event. These included 

Plaintiffs Poder in Action (“Poder”) and Puente, which are 

Phoenix-based membership organizations that engage in 

advocacy concerning immigrants’ rights and other issues. In 

anticipation of the rally and accompanying counter-protests, 

the PPD coordinated with federal, state, and local agencies 

to develop a security plan. 

As part of that security plan, the PPD decided to 

designate two separate areas for security and protestassembly purposes. The first of these was the so-called 

“Free Speech Zone,” on the block immediately north of the 

convention center, where “anti-Trump protesters were 

expected to gather.”1 The second of these was the so-called

“Public Safety Zone,” which ran between the Free Speech 

Zone and the convention center itself. In order to facilitate 

emergency vehicle and police access, the Public Safety Zone

(which included the street between the Free Speech Zone 

and the convention center) was closed to the public and was 

fenced off from the Free Speech Zone. The following image 

1 On appeal, Plaintiffs do not raise any contention that the establishment 

of the Free Speech Zone was itself unconstitutional.

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 9

from the record shows the position of the Free Speech Zone

(marked as the “Protest Area”):

The Free Speech Zone began on the north side of Monroe 

Street and ran between 2nd and 3rd Street. The Public Safety 

Zone included the entirety of Monroe Street itself and ran 

eastward from 2nd Street all the way to 5th Street (which is 

not included in the above image). 

Acting through its Community Relations Bureau 

(“CRB”), the PPD also communicated with local groups 

who had notified the PPD that they were planning 

demonstrations. These efforts included a meeting, the day 

before the rally, between a Detective in the CRB and “the 

protest organizer” for Puente. Various protest organizers 

met with members of the CRB to discuss their plans, arrange 

for delivery of supplies, and coordinate a police escort to the 

Free Speech Zone on the day of President Trump’s rally. 

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10 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

The PPD anticipated the possibility of isolated unlawful 

conduct occurring in the vicinity of the rally. Among the 

“potential threats” or weapons that the PPD thought might 

possibly be used were “improvised incendiary devices, guns, 

knives, rocks, and human excrement.” Based on its 

experience with prior protests, the PPD also had specific 

concerns about the decentralized movement known as 

“Antifa,” whose members the PPD believed might attend the 

event. The PPD was aware that Antifa members had

engaged in violence or vandalism at previous public political 

events. 

Nonetheless, the PPD’s planning for this specific event 

did not include any particularized rules of engagement 

concerning the use of force beyond those applicable to such 

deployments generally. Similarly, while the PPD 

anticipated that it might need to declare an unlawful 

assembly, it did not create a specific plan for doing so and 

instead distributed general guidance regarding the unlawful 

assembly statute to its officers. The PPD’s general training 

emphasized the tactic of isolating and addressing groups of 

individuals acting unlawfully within a larger protest. 

The PPD also planned to have available at the event a 

contingent of persons from its “Tactical Response Unit” 

(“TRU”). This group, also known as the “Field Force,” is a 

specialized PPD unit that responds to civil disturbances. Its 

members are trained on, and governed by, specific PPD 

policies covering potential uses of force. This training 

includes guidance for protecting First Amendment assembly 

and free speech rights. Defendant Lieutenant Benjamin 

Moore headed the TRU deployment at this particular event. 

Within TRU is an even more specialized group called the 

Grenadiers. Grenadiers train in the use of chemical agents 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 11

and munitions such as “pepper balls”—concentrated 

powdered chemical projectiles that induce a physical 

reaction similar to that caused by pepper spray. That training 

includes instruction on when and how to appropriately 

deploy chemical agents. Although Grenadiers are present at

dozens of protests each year, the most recent prior incident 

where they actually used chemical agents was in July 2016. 

All named Defendants in this case who are individuals 

(except for Police Chief Jeri Williams) were experienced 

Grenadiers who had overseen multiple protests prior to 

August 22, 2017. Moore in particular had overseen 

hundreds of protests. 

B

Pursuant to its security plan and to prevent protesters in 

the Free Speech Zone from occupying the Public Safety 

Zone on Monroe Street, the PPD erected a three-foot high 

pedestrian fence “threaded with yellow police tape that said 

‘Police Line Do Not Cross.’” To handle the crowds, 

approximately 985 public safety employees—including 

TRU officers and Grenadiers—were deployed in the area. 

The PPD also stationed undercover officers in the Free 

Speech Zone to observe the demonstrators’ activities and to 

monitor the crowd for possible threats throughout the 

afternoon and evening. 

Protesters began arriving outside the convention center 

on the morning of August 22. As noted earlier, some protest 

groups had notified the CRB in advance of their intention to 

protest, and the CRB assisted them with logistical details, 

including escorting some groups as they made their way to 

the convention center area. Members of Plaintiffs Puente 

and Poder arrived at the Free Speech Zone shortly after 4:00 

PM and demonstrated there for several hours. 

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12 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

Approximately 6,000 people gathered outside the 

convention center at the height of the protest, which 

proceeded without major incidents during the day. President 

Trump arrived at the convention center around 6:30 PM, and 

the demonstrators continued to remain largely peaceful. 

The first violent incidents occurred shortly after 7:00 

PM, when unknown persons in the Free Speech Zone began 

throwing water bottles across Monroe Street at the police 

and at those waiting in line to enter the convention center. 

The PPD responded by moving additional TRU officers to 

Monroe Street and by broadcasting a loud message using a 

long-range acoustic device (“LRAD”) reminding protesters 

to stop throwing objects and to remain peaceful. Around that 

time, Moore received reports regarding the presence of 

potential Antifa members in the crowd, and he ordered his 

officers to watch them and attempt to communicate with 

them. About an hour later, around 8:00 PM, Moore received 

specific reports that certain of these potential Antifa

members were carrying signs, including signs on tall poles. 

Antifa members were known to have used “tall signs” in the 

past to topple fences and barriers, and Moore suspected that 

a similar attempt might be made to breach the fence 

separating the Public Safety Zone from the Free Speech 

Zone. 

At 8:05 PM, Moore was informed that approximately 10

to 20 individuals thought to be members of Antifa were 

beginning “to start some trouble” in the Free Speech Zone. 

Given the group’s distinctive clothing, banners, and 

behavior, Moore was able to identify several suspected 

Antifa members within the crowd in the Free Speech Zone, 

and at approximately 8:07 PM, he directed the head of the 

Grenadiers, Sergeant Douglas McBride, to “get eyes on it.” 

According to McBride, the Antifa members were acting 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 13

aggressively and shouting profanities. Around the same 

time, officers observed suspected Antifa members shove a 

protester who had told them to stop throwing objects. CRB 

officers approached these members and attempted to talk 

with them in an effort to de-escalate the situation, but the

officers reported to Moore that the members would not 

communicate with them. McBride made all Grenadiers 

aware of the suspected Antifa members in the crowd, but the 

PPD did not attempt to remove or arrest these people at this 

time. 

At 8:11 PM, Moore was informed that President 

Trump’s motorcade would soon depart from the convention 

center. At 8:15 PM, Moore was informed that people were 

throwing water bottles down from a parking garage located 

at the edge of the Free Speech Zone, requiring the 

deployment of TRU officers to secure the building. The

PPD used the LRAD to make continuous announcements to 

warn people not to throw objects. 

Around 8:20 PM, Moore noticed that the suspected 

Antifa members had erected large signs near the fence 

separating the Free Speech Zone from the Public Safety 

Zone on Monroe Street. The PPD officers approached and 

saw these members hooking their flags and banners to the 

fencing; Moore believed that this could be a tactic to breach 

the fence. At about 8:30 PM, Moore noticed these members 

gathering behind the signs, and other officers reported seeing 

them opening bags and handing out unidentified items. The 

PPD officers did not attempt to separate these individuals 

from the crowd of protesters. Moore directed McBride to 

prepare the Grenadiers in the Public Safety Zone to deploy 

pepper balls if the suspected Antifa members tried to breach 

the fence. 

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14 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

Around 8:32 PM, the suspected Antifa members began 

pushing the fence. Moore ordered officers to fire pepper 

balls at the ground in front of the suspected Antifa group. 

These pepper balls released “PAVA powder,” which 

temporarily irritates the eyes of persons nearby. As a result, 

some members of the group dispersed into the crowd of 

protesters. The PPD did not provide warnings or attempt to 

make arrests before firing the pepper balls. In a declaration, 

Moore explained he made the decision not to attempt 

individualized arrests based on his belief that the suspected

Antifa group’s members “had not committed a crime or 

given cause for arrest” and that—even if they had—sending 

officers into the crowd to conduct arrests would risk handto-hand violence, strain police manpower, and require 

opening the police fence. Some Antifa members remained, 

however, and another person who was not a suspected Antifa 

member but who was standing near the fence began shaking 

it with some force. That person was Plaintiff Ira Yedlin. 

According to Moore, “Grenadiers then deployed more 

pepper balls in that area.” Yedlin was physically hit by some 

of these pepper balls. 

With the suspected Antifa members then cleared away 

from the police fence and dispersed among the crowd, 

Moore directed the Grenadiers to “hold off” from firing any 

more pepper balls to see whether the unlawful activity would

stop. But the activity instead escalated, with individuals in 

the Free Speech Zone throwing rocks, water bottles, and 

other objects at an increasing rate. This escalation in 

violence coincided with President Trump’s motorcade 

leaving the convention center at around 8:33 PM. At 8:34 

PM, an individual in the Free Speech Zone threw a canister

into the Public Safety Zone that began emitting an unknown 

gas. Moore ordered the officers present to don gas masks 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 15

and to “deploy smoke canisters.” The smoke itself is “inert” 

and does not produce the same physical effects as tear gas. 

Although the smoke was deployed in an effort to “defuse the 

situation, create distance, and . . . avoid escalating tactics,”

it did not succeed. Although some in the crowd left when 

the PPD deployed the smoke, many in the crowd continued 

to throw objects back at police; indeed, “the frequency of 

items being thrown at officers significantly increased.” The 

objects being thrown included a “pyrotechnical munition” of 

some kind, which burned for a few minutes before being 

extinguished by police. 

Moore concluded that, once these unknown devices were

thrown at officers, the assembly had become unlawful, but 

he did not make any announcement to that effect. He instead 

ordered the Grenadiers to deploy tear gas and authorized the 

further use of pepper balls as well as other riot-control 

devices. From approximately 8:35 PM to 8:45 PM, PPD 

officers began dispersing the crowd in the section of the Free 

Speech Zone immediately across from the Phoenix 

Convention Center by using tear gas and flash-bang

grenades. At 8:39 PM, Moore ordered the Grenadiers to cut 

a gap in the police fence, enter the Free Speech Zone, and 

begin clearing the remaining individuals in the area using 

“targeted munitions like pepper balls when necessary to 

drive back any threatening or aggressive individuals.” He 

also organized a “skirmish line” of officers to walk slowly 

down Monroe Street from 3rd Street to 2nd Street, where 

there seemed to be a larger number of “unlawful actors.” As 

that line of officers proceeded down Monroe Street, some 

members of the TRU “deployed pepper spray from handheld 

canisters at or near specific individuals they perceived as 

threatening or aggressive.” 

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16 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

At some point between 8:42 PM and 8:47 PM, Moore 

decided to make a declaration that the assembly was 

unlawful. This declaration was first announced at 8:52 PM

by a PPD helicopter using a public address system above the 

Free Speech Zone—though the noise and chaos of the 

concurrent police action substantially diminished protesters’ 

ability to understand and respond to the orders. At 9:02 PM, 

a police vehicle at the intersection of Second and Monroe 

Streets—one corner of the Free Speech Zone—began 

repeatedly communicating unlawful-assembly declarations 

as well. To clear those protesters remaining in the Free 

Speech Zone, at 9:04 or 9:05 PM, TRU officers formed 

another skirmish line and slowly marched north along

Second Street. Officers in the line used further non-lethal 

munitions—including pepper balls and spray—against

particular individuals continuing to throw objects or 

otherwise act aggressively. Plaintiff Janet Travis, who was 

recording the events from a position directly in front of the 

skirmish line, was hit by a projectile.

By approximately 9:10 PM, the PPD had cleared the last 

remaining individuals away from the Free Speech Zone. The 

PPD arrested a total of five people over the course of the day, 

none of whom are Plaintiffs in this case. 

At a post-event press conference, Police Chief Williams 

stated that, in her view, officers handled the crowd 

“successfully and professionally” and that “all in all” the 

event was “a successful celebration.” She later stated that 

the department’s conduct was “textbook perfect.” In a 

subsequent memorandum to the City Manager, Ed Zuercher,

Williams wrote that she “believe[d] the actions of [her] 

officers reflected the direction [she] gave them.” Zuercher 

responded, writing that what the PPD “accomplished on

August 22 was notable” and hailed the officers’ 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 17

“professionalism in ensuring the safety and First 

Amendment rights of the community.” Zuercher informed 

Williams that the City planned to conduct an independent 

investigation of the PPD’s conduct at the event, but he added

that his request did not “diminish the professionalism of our 

Phoenix Police officers.” 

Sometime after the protest, a “challenge coin”

commemorating the events of August 22, 2017 was created. 

On one side, the coin depicted a protestor being hit in the 

groin by a munition. That side also bore the inscription 

“Good night left nut.” On the other side was the date of the 

protest surrounded by the inscription “Making America 

great again one nut at a time.” At least four PPD officers 

possessed the coin, and at least one officer sold and 

distributed it. 

C

On September 4, 2018, Plaintiffs filed this action in the 

district court, alleging that the PPD’s actions in dispersing 

the crowd of protesters constituted excessive force under the

Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, deprived the protesters 

of their First Amendment speech rights, and discriminated 

against the protesters in contravention of the Fourteenth 

Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. 

In September 2019, the district court certified two 

classes.2 First, the court held that, under Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 23(b)(3), individual Plaintiffs Gonzalez 

Goodman, Guillen, and Travis could represent the following 

class seeking damages with respect to certain claims alleging 

excessive force under the Fourth and Fourteenth 

2 Neither side challenges the class certification order on appeal, and we 

therefore do not address any issue concerning whether the district court 

properly certified a class action in this case.

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18 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

Amendments, deprivation of First Amendment rights, and 

discrimination in contravention of the Fourteenth 

Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause:3

“[T]hose persons who were present on 

August 22, 2017” in the Free Speech Zone 

“and forced by PPD onto adjacent streets at 

any point between 8:25 and 10:00 P.M., who 

neither threw objects nor attempted to breach 

the ‘free speech zone’ barrier along Monroe 

Street, and who were subjected to the PPD’s 

dispersal by the use of force, or other 

unlawful police activity arising from the 

police response to anti-Trump protestors,” 

and “who were unlawfully dispersed by the 

use of gas, pepper spray, pepper bullets, or 

other chemical agents” (emphasis added).

The district court also held, under Rule 23(b)(2), that the 

same three individuals, as well as Puente and Poder, could 

3 The district court’s certification order should itself have clearly stated 

the exact definition of the damages class that it was certifying and the 

relevant claims. See FED. R. CIV. P. 23(c)(1)(B) (stating that “[a]n order 

that certifies a class action must define the class and the class claims, 

issues, or defenses”). Here, we are able to discern the damages class’s 

definition only by reading the court’s order together with other 

documents in the record. Moreover, the order, standing alone, clearly 

suggests that the equal protection claim was being certified for class 

treatment together with the First Amendment claim, but the court later 

confusingly suggested in its summary judgment order that it had not

certified a class as to the equal protection claim. 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 19

represent the following certified class seeking injunctive 

relief:

“[A]ll persons who have in the past, 

including those present at the anti-Trump 

protest on August 22, 2017, between 8:25 and 

10:00 P.M., or may in the future, participate 

in, or be present at, demonstrations within the 

City of Phoenix in the exercise of their rights 

of free speech and assembly without 

engaging in any conduct justifying the use of 

force.”

The court, however, rejected Plaintiffs’ request to certify an 

additional damages class with respect to persons who had 

been “struck with projectiles of any type,” concluding that 

the claims of such persons raised individualized issues that 

precluded classwide treatment. 

At the close of discovery, the parties cross-moved for 

summary judgment. In February 2022, the district court 

denied Plaintiffs’ motion in its entirety and granted 

Defendants’ motion in part. 

First, the district court granted summary judgment to 

Defendants on all claims brought by the two certified 

classes. 

Regarding the classes’ excessive-force claims, the 

district court began by addressing whether those claims were 

properly evaluated under the Fourth Amendment’s

“objectively reasonable” standard, see Graham v. Connor, 

490 U.S. 386, 397 (1989), or the Fourteenth Amendment’s 

“shocks the conscience” standard, see County of Sacramento 

v Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 846–47 (1998); Wilkinson v. Torres, 

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20 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

610 F.3d 546, 554 (9th Cir. 2010). That issue turned on 

whether the use of force in connection with the deployment 

of chemical agents involved a “seizure” within the meaning 

of the Fourth Amendment, and the district court held that it 

did not. Applying the relevant Fourteenth Amendment 

substantive due process standards, the district court held that 

there was no evidence in the record from which a reasonable 

jury could conclude that Defendants acted with the requisite 

“purpose to harm unrelated to legitimate law enforcement 

objectives.”

The district court also granted summary judgment to 

Defendants on the classes’ First Amendment claim. Noting 

that the parties disagreed as to the applicable First 

Amendment standards, the court held that Plaintiffs’ claim 

failed either way. Applying Defendants’ preferred 

standards, the district court held that Plaintiffs “failed to 

demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact as to whether 

chilling class members’ First Amendment rights was a 

substantial or motivating factor that caused the officers to 

take the actions they did.” Applying Plaintiffs’ preferred 

standards in the alternative, the district court also held that 

“no reasonable jury could conclude from the evidence that 

the officers did not have adequate justification for their 

actions.” The court further concluded that the equal 

protection claim “fails with Plaintiffs’ First Amendment 

claim.” 

Having resolved all of the class claims, the district court 

addressed the named Plaintiffs’ remaining claims. The court 

held that Puente’s and Poder’s claims all failed as a matter 

of law. To the extent that these organizations asserted claims 

on their own behalf or any non-class claims for injunctive 

relief, the court held that the evidence proffered by Puente 

and Poder did “not go materially further than that pertaining 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 21

to the class members,” and any such claims failed for the 

same reasons. And to the extent that Puente and Poder also 

purported to invoke “associational standing” to assert any 

remaining non-injunctive claims on behalf of their members, 

such claims would require the participation of such 

individual members, and therefore did not qualify for 

associational standing under Hunt v. Washington State Apple 

Advertising Commission, 432 U.S. 333, 343 (1977). 

The district court granted Defendants’ motion for 

summary judgment on the individual claims brought by 

Gonzalez Goodman because, as with Puente and Poder’s 

claims, the court concluded that “the evidence related to 

[her] claims d[id] not go materially further than that 

pertaining to the class members.” 

However, the district court denied summary judgment to 

the relevant individual officers with respect to the individual 

Fourth Amendment excessive-force claims asserted by 

Yedlin, Travis, and Guillen. The district court held that, 

because they had actually been struck by projectiles, Yedlin,

Travis, and Guillen were “seized” within the meaning of the 

Fourth Amendment and that a genuine dispute of material 

fact existed as to whether the force used against them was 

reasonable. The court further held that the constitutional 

right “not to be subjected to unreasonable force during a 

seizure—by way of the deployment [of] pepper balls, 

muzzle blasts, and pepper spray—where less severe or 

intrusive means of applying force were available and 

sufficient in the circumstances” was clearly established at 

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22 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

the time, and the district court therefore denied qualified 

immunity to the relevant officers as to these claims.

4 

The district court nonetheless granted summary 

judgment to Defendants on Yedlin’s, Travis’s, and Guillen’s 

First Amendment and equal protection claims, holding that 

there was insufficient evidence in the record to show that 

“chilling Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights was a 

substantial motivating factor for the officers’ actions, let 

alone . . . a but-for cause.” 

The district court also granted summary judgment 

against Plaintiffs on all claims against Williams and the City 

of Phoenix. In contrast to Moore and McBride, the district 

court concluded that there was insufficient evidence in the 

record to demonstrate that Williams “reasonably should 

have known that the actions she set in motion . . . would 

cause officers to inflict constitutional injuries,” and that she 

could therefore not be found liable as a supervisor under 

Felarca v. Birgeneau, 891 F.3d 809, 819–20 (9th Cir. 2018). 

The court also held that the record did not support a finding 

that any of the constitutional violations Plaintiffs alleged 

were caused by an official policy or custom of the City of 

Phoenix and that consequently there was no basis for 

municipal liability under Monell v. Department of Social 

Services of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). 

4 The officers involved in the particular incidents involving these three 

individual Plaintiffs differed. Specifically, the court allowed Yedlin’s 

excessive-force claim to go forward against Defendants Robert Scott, 

Jeffrey Howell, and George Herr; Travis’s excessive-force claim to go 

forward against Defendants Christopher Turiano and Howell; and 

Guillen’s excessive-force claim to go forward against Defendants Scott, 

Howell, Herr, and Turiano. The district court further held that McBride 

and Moore could be held liable on these three claims under a theory of 

supervisorial liability. 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 23

Finally, the court held that there was sufficient evidence 

to allow Plaintiffs to seek punitive damages on the individual 

excessive-force claims that had survived summary 

judgment.

The six individual Defendants against whom individual 

excessive-force claims were allowed to proceed filed a 

timely interlocutory appeal from the district court’s denial of 

qualified immunity. Thereafter, the court granted Plaintiffs’ 

unopposed motion for entry of a partial judgment, under 

Rule 54(b), on all decided claims. Plaintiffs timely appealed 

that adverse partial judgment. We have jurisdiction over 

both appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. See Trim v. Reward 

Zone USA LLC, 76 F.4th 1157, 1160 (9th Cir. 2023); Estate 

of Anderson v. Marsh, 985 F.3d 726, 730–31 (9th Cir. 2021).

II

We turn first to Plaintiffs’ class claims of excessive force 

under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.5 As noted 

earlier, the district court certified a damages class, but only 

with respect to persons in the Free Speech Zone “who were 

unlawfully dispersed by the use of gas, pepper spray, pepper 

bullets, or other chemical agents.” Plaintiffs contend that the 

district court erred in concluding that the excessive-force 

5 Because Plaintiffs do not dispute the district court’s determination that 

the evidence concerning the various claims asserted by Puente, Poder, 

and Gonzalez Goodman were co-extensive with those of the classes, we 

will not separately discuss the claims of those three Plaintiffs. Our 

holdings with respect to the class claims are dispositive of any separate 

claims of Puente, Poder, and Gonzalez Goodman. Plaintiffs’ opening 

brief also does not contest the district court’s determination that, if the 

district court correctly held that the damages class’s excessive-force 

claims failed, then Plaintiffs’ class claims for injunctive relief based on 

excessive-force also fail. We therefore do not separately discuss such 

injunctive claims.

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24 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

claims of these class members were governed by Fourteenth 

Amendment standards rather than Fourth Amendment 

standards. They also contend that, under either set of 

standards, summary judgment for Defendants was improper. 

We consider these contentions in turn. 

A 

By its terms, the Fourth Amendment protects the “right 

of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, 

and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” 

See U.S. CONST. amend. IV (emphasis added). Accordingly, 

when a police application of force involves a “seizure” of a 

“person,” we evaluate whether that force was excessive 

under the Fourth Amendment’s “‘objective reasonableness’ 

standard.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 388 (1989)

(citation omitted). In contrast, when presented with a claim 

of injuries resulting from alleged excessive force applied 

“outside the context of a seizure,” we apply a Fourteenth 

Amendment substantive due process standard that asks 

whether the police behavior “shocks the conscience.” 

County of Sacramento v Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 844, 846–47 

(1998). Here, we agree with the district court that the PPD’s 

dispersal of class members by the airborne transmission of 

chemical irritants (such as tear gas and pepper spray) and 

auditory or visual irritants (such as the sound and flash 

produced by flash-bang grenades) does not constitute a 

seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. 

“The ‘seizure’ of a ‘person’ can take the form of physical 

force or a show of authority that in some way restrains the 

liberty of the person.” Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 306, 311 

(2021) (simplified). A seizure by show of authority, “such 

as an order for a suspect to halt,” does not constitute a 

“seizure” within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 25

“unless and until the arrestee complies with the demand.” Id. 

(emphasis added); see also California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 

621, 626 (1991). But a seizure by physical force may occur 

even “if the force, despite hitting its target, fails to stop the 

person.” Torres, 592 U.S. at 311. In reaching this latter 

conclusion, Torres drew on the common law governing 

“arrests,” which constitute the “quintessential[]” “seizure” 

covered by the Fourth Amendment. Id. at 312 (citation 

omitted). Because, at common law, “an officer’s application 

of physical force to the body of a person for the purpose of 

arresting him was itself an arrest—not an attempted arrest—

even if the person did not yield,” id. at 311 (emphasis 

altered) (internal quotation marks omitted), the Court 

concluded that a “seizure” includes a “laying on of hands or 

application of physical force to restrain movement, even 

when it is ultimately unsuccessful.” Id. at 312 (emphasis 

added) (citation omitted). Accordingly, the Court held that 

“the application of physical force to the body of a person 

with intent to restrain is a seizure even if the person does not 

submit and is not subdued.” Id. at 325. 

The Court in Torres underscored the importance of the

common law’s intent-to-restrain requirement to any finding 

of a “seizure” based on the “application of physical force to 

the body of a person.” 592 U.S. at 325; see also id. at 317

(“A seizure requires the use of force with intent to 

restrain.”). That critical element prevents the “common law 

rule” from “transform[ing] every physical contact between a 

government employee and a member of the public into a 

Fourth Amendment seizure.” Id. at 317. The Court further 

explained that, with respect to this element, “the appropriate 

inquiry is whether the challenged conduct objectively

manifests an intent to restrain, for [the courts] rarely probe 

the subjective motivations of police officers in the Fourth 

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26 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

Amendment context.” Id. And just as an officer’s purely 

subjective intent is not relevant, so too the inquiry does not 

“depend on the subjective perceptions of the seized person.” 

Id.

Plaintiffs do not contend that they were seized by a 

“show of authority” to which they submitted, but only that 

they were seized by an application of physical force with an 

objective intent to restrain. We will assume, without 

deciding, that the diffuse airborne transmission of chemical 

irritants or intense flashes or sounds at a group of persons 

may constitute an “application of physical force to the body 

of [those] person[s].” Torres, 592 U.S. at 311; cf. 

Headwaters Forest Def. v. County of Humboldt, 276 F.3d 

1125, 1129–30 (9th Cir. 2002) (holding that the direct 

application of pepper spray to the eyes of protesters using a 

Q-tip was an application of force for Fourth Amendment 

purposes); Edrei v. Maguire, 892 F.3d 525, 543 (2d Cir. 

2018) (holding that deliberate use of sounds loud enough to 

cause physical injury constitutes an application of force for 

Fourth Amendment purposes). But even on that assumption, 

Defendants’ use of such irritants to disperse the crowd from 

the Free Speech Zone does not constitute a seizure because 

there is no basis in the record for concluding that it was 

undertaken with the necessary objective intent to restrain. 

See Torres, 592 U.S. at 317–18.

Torres makes clear that an objective intent to “restrain,” 

for Fourth Amendment purposes, refers to measures that 

objectively aim to detain or confine the person, even if only 

temporarily or even if only through a “mere touch.” 592 

U.S. at 317–18; see also id. at 318 (“[B]rief seizures are 

seizures all the same.”). In deriving the contours of its 

understanding of a “seizure,” Torres relied on two common 

law analogies—namely, the common law governing 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 27

“arrests” (for seizures with probable cause) and the common 

law of “false imprisonment” (for seizures without probable 

cause). Id. at 311, 320. As the Court noted, “[t]he point of 

an arrest” is “to take custody of a person to secure his 

appearance at a proceeding.” Id. at 319 (emphasis added). 

Likewise, “[t]he tort of false imprisonment”—which the 

Court agreed was “the closest analogy to an arrest without 

probable cause”—“required ‘confinement,’ such as ‘taking a 

person into custody under an asserted legal authority.’” Id. 

(emphasis added) (simplified) (quoting RESTATEMENT OF 

TORTS §§ 35, 41 (1934)). Because an objective intent to 

assert custody over a person, or to confine the person, was 

required for any form of “arrest,” the requisite intent to 

restrain is present only when the force applied objectively 

aims at detaining or confining the person. It follows that an 

application of force with an objective intent merely to 

disperse or exclude persons from an area—and without any 

measures objectively aimed at detaining or confining them 

in the process—does not involve the necessary “intent to 

restrain” that might give rise to a “seizure.”

The correctness of this conclusion is confirmed by 

considering what a contrary conclusion would mean with 

respect to the other form of “seizure” covered by the Fourth 

Amendment (and not at issue in this case). As noted earlier, 

the Court in Torres confirmed that a “‘seizure’ of a ‘person’ 

can take the form of physical force or a show of authority 

that in some way restrains the liberty of the person.” Torres, 

592 U.S. at 311 (emphasis added) (simplified). However, a 

“show of authority that in some way restrains” a person does 

not become a seizure “unless and until the [person] complies

with the demand.” Id. (emphasis added). If a mere objective 

intent to disperse suffices to constitute an intent to “restrain,” 

that would mean that a simple instruction to leave an area or 

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28 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

certain premises would constitute a “seizure” if it is obeyed. 

And that would mean, for example, that a public librarian 

who merely instructs all the patrons to leave at closing time 

has “seized” all of those who comply. We are aware of no 

support for such an extravagant proposition. On the 

contrary, the common law consistently treated orders of 

“exclusion” from a place as not satisfying the “confinement” 

requirement of the tort of false imprisonment. See

RESTATEMENT OF TORTS § 36 cmt. b (1934) (“[If] A 

wrongfully prevents B from entering the United States[,] A 

has not confined B, although B, in a sense, may be said to be 

confined within the residue of the habitable world”); see also 

RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF TORTS: INTEN. TORTS TO 

PERSONS § 8, Reporter’s Note on cmt. b (Tentative Draft No. 

3, 2018) (stating that “exclusion from a place, even if 

wrongful, does not ordinarily constitute confinement”). 

We hasten to add that the analysis would be different if, 

in the course of accomplishing such an intended dispersal or 

exclusion, a person uses measures that objectively aim to

detain or confine another person. Thus, for example, the 

public librarian who, in order to accomplish the dispersal or 

exclusion of patrons who ignore a closing-time instruction 

to leave, grabs them and then pushes or throws them out has 

effectuated a “seizure.” The same would be true if the 

librarian pressed the shoulder of overstaying patrons and 

physically escorted them to the door. In both instances, a 

seizure has occurred because the librarian has used measures 

that objectively detained or confined the patrons’ 

movement—even if only temporarily—so that, under the 

librarian’s control, the patrons will be moved out the door. 

The fact that the librarian’s ultimate objective was to exclude 

the patrons from the premises is not normally enough, by 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 29

itself, to constitute an objective intent to restrain that gives 

rise to a seizure.

With these principles in mind, we conclude that 

Plaintiffs failed to produce sufficient evidence to establish 

that, in the course of attempting to disperse and exclude class 

members from the Free Speech Zone, the Defendant 

officers’ application of force through the use of various 

diffusely-applied airborne irritants involved measures that 

objectively aimed at detaining or confining them, even 

temporarily. As we have noted, and as the district court 

emphasized, the district court did not certify a class with 

respect to Plaintiffs’ claims that some persons were directly 

physically impacted by projectiles, such as the physical 

pepper balls. And the district court certified a class of 

persons dispersed by exposure to chemical irritants only 

because it concluded that “the very nature of the use of gas 

is that it is not contained to a certain individual or a small 

area” (emphasis added). Thus, in evaluating the class’s

excessive-force claims, we set aside any individualized 

physical impacts to individual class members by projectiles 

and focus only upon the class members’ generalized 

exposure to chemical irritants that were objectively aimed at 

moving them out of the area. But Plaintiffs have produced 

no evidence that the chemical deployments at issue here 

were undertaken with an objective intent to restrain, such as, 

for example, by targeting an immobilizing level of force at 

selected individuals. They also do not show that the 

deployments somehow resulted in any submission to the 

officers’ show of force, which arguably would have 

constituted a seizure from a show of authority. See Torres, 

592 U.S. at 311 (“An arrest requires either physical force . . .

or, where that is absent, submission to the assertion of 

authority.” (simplified)). On the contrary, Plaintiffs 

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30 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

expressly conceded in their opening brief that the 

deployments at issue here “quickly dispersed all protesters 

from the crowded Free-Speech Zone.” On this record, the 

only reasonable conclusion is that the dispersal of the class 

members was accomplished without measures objectively 

aimed at detaining or confining them. There was thus no 

objective intent to restrain and no seizure for Fourth 

Amendment purposes.

In nonetheless arguing that the Defendant officers here 

effectuated a seizure, Plaintiffs rely on a variety of clearly 

distinguishable cases, all of which involved scenarios where 

the defendant officers did detain or confine persons, even if 

only briefly, or applied force objectively aimed at restraint 

or confinement in the course of attempting to disperse them. 

Cf. Torres, 592 U.S. at 323 (noting that a seizure can occur 

even if the arrestee is “never actually brought within the 

physical control of the party making an arrest” (citation 

omitted)); id. (“[A] seizure is a single act, and not a 

continuous fact.” (simplified)). For example, in 

Headwaters, the officers repeatedly, directly, and 

individually applied pepper spray with a Q-tip to the eyes of 

a set of protesters who had linked themselves together using 

“black bears,” i.e., metal devices that shielded the protesters’ 

arms from being separated unless the protesters 

affirmatively unlocked the devices from the inside. 276 F.3d 

at 1127–29. The aim was to cause irritation that was so 

intolerable that the protesters would voluntarily release 

themselves from the black bears, which some of them did. 

Id. In addressing the protesters’ excessive-force claims, we 

considered whether the officers’ use of pepper spray 

constituted excessive force “to effect an arrest.” Id. at 1130 

(emphasis added). We also emphasized that, at the time that 

the officers applied the pepper spray, they already “had 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 31

control over the protesters,” who were guarded over by the 

officers. Id. A situation, such as Headwaters, in which 

persons are already being detained under the control of 

officers, and for the objective purpose of effectuating their 

arrest, is obviously a “seizure” under Torres. Nothing 

comparable is presented with respect to the claims of the 

class members here.

Likewise, in Nelson v. City of Davis, 685 F.3d 867 (9th 

Cir. 2012), campus police officers attempting to clear 

partygoers out of an apartment complex launched 

pepperballs directly at a particular group of students, and one 

of the pepperballs “struck Nelson in the eye,” causing him to 

“immediately collapse[] on the ground and f[a]ll into the 

bushes where he writhed in pain for ten to fifteen minutes.” 

Id. at 874. Nelson suffered permanent eye injuries requiring 

“multiple surgeries.” Id. In rejecting the officers’ argument 

that there was no seizure because they had not subjectively 

intended to hit Nelson, we concluded that there was a seizure 

because “[t]heir conduct was intentional, it was aimed 

towards Nelson and his group, and it resulted in the 

application of physical force to Nelson’s person as well as 

the termination of his movement.” Id. at 877; see also

Sanderlin v. Dwyer, 116 F.4th 905, 917 n.2 (9th Cir. 2024) 

(observing that the officers in Nelson “objectively 

manifested an intent to restrain by firing projectile 

pepperballs into the crowd, knowing there was a 

significantly high risk that one such projectile could strike 

and incapacitate a member of the group”). The airborne 

dissemination of irritants in this case, by contrast, involves 

no such measures that were objectively aimed at restraining

the class members or that actually succeeded in the 

“termination of [their] movement.” Nelson, 685 F.3d at 877; 

cf. Sanderlin, 116 F.4th at 913 (finding an objective intent to 

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32 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

restrain when the type of force applied was “chiefly 

designed, intended, and used for the purpose of 

incapacitat[ion],” and the force was indisputably “an act that 

meaningfully interfere[d]” with the targets’ “freedom of 

movement” (simplified)). 

Felarca v. Birgeneau, 891 F.3d 809 (9th Cir. 2018), is 

similarly distinguishable. In Felarca, the protesters engaged 

in apparent misdemeanor violations when they “link[ed] 

arms with other students” in order to block officers from 

taking down tents that had been illegally set up on campus 

grounds. Id. at 816, 818. But the officers did not use force 

that was objectively merely aimed at dispersal. Rather, they 

sought to accomplish the dispersal by the use of direct force 

that objectively aimed at momentarily detaining the 

plaintiffs within the officers’ control—specifically, the 

officers physically struck or jabbed the plaintiffs with batons 

and knocked one of them to the ground. Id. at 816. That sort 

of conduct, which involves force objectively aimed at the 

temporary restraint of the person, is more akin to our earlier 

example of the librarian who accomplishes a dispersal by 

throwing a patron out bodily or physically escorting them 

out. Again, nothing comparable has been shown with 

respect to the class claims in this case.6 Cf. Torres 592 U.S. 

at 317 (“While a mere touch can be enough for a seizure, the 

amount of force remains pertinent in assessing the objective 

intent to restrain.”).

6 Likewise unavailing is Plaintiffs’ reliance on Bennett v. City of 

Eastpointe, 410 F.3d 810, 834 (6th Cir. 2005). There, the officer first 

seized the plaintiffs by stopping them on their bicycles by “flash[ing] his 

overhead lights,” and he then ordered and “escorted” them in crossing 

the street. Id. at 833–34. This case does not involve any such directed 

and specific control over a person’s movements following an initial 

conceded seizure.

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 33

Because the record shows that the Defendant officers’ 

use of airborne irritants here was not objectively aimed at 

restraining the class members, even temporarily, there was 

no “seizure” of the class members within the meaning of the 

Fourth Amendment. 

B

Having found that the class’s excessive-force claims 

arose “outside the context of a seizure,” we evaluate those 

claims under the Fourteenth Amendment “shocks-theconscience test.” County of Sacramento, 523 U.S. at 844, 

854.

We have used “two tests” to determine “whether 

officers’ conduct ‘shocks the conscience,’” and “[w]hich test 

applies turns on whether the officers had time to deliberate 

their conduct.” Ochoa v. City of Mesa, 26 F.4th 1050, 1056 

(9th Cir. 2022). Where “the situation at issue evolved in a 

time frame that permits the officer to deliberate before 

acting,” then an officer’s use of force will be found to 

“shock[] the conscience” if the officer acted with “deliberate 

indifference” toward any resulting harm. Id. (simplified); 

see also County of Sacramento, 523 U.S. at 849–53. If, on 

the other hand, “the situation at issue escalated so quickly 

that the officer had to make a snap judgment,” then the 

officer’s use of force “shocks the conscience” only if the 

officer acted with “a purpose to harm [the plaintiff] for 

reasons unrelated to legitimate law enforcement objectives.” 

Ochoa, 26 F.4th at 1056 (simplified); see also County of 

Sacramento, 523 U.S. at 852–54. 

We have stated that the word “deliberation,” for these 

purposes, should not be interpreted in a “narrow, technical 

sense.” Wilkinson v. Torres, 610 F.3d 546, 554 (9th Cir. 

2010). Though a police officer may literally have “time to 

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34 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

deliberate” while, e.g., chasing a suspect, we nevertheless 

apply the “purpose to harm” standard whenever the

circumstances “force the officers to act quickly.” Id. In 

other words, “actual deliberation is practical” only when 

officials have “time to make unhurried judgments, [with] the 

chance for repeated reflection, largely uncomplicated by the 

pulls of competing obligations.” County of Sacramento, 523 

U.S. at 851, 853 (emphasis added). Thus, for example, we 

have applied the “purpose to harm” standard in cases 

involving the active use of force during “sudden police 

chases” or “prison riot[s],” where officers “have obligations 

that tend to tug against each other,” which they must balance 

“in haste, under pressure, and frequently without the luxury 

of a second chance.” Id. at 853 (citation omitted); see also 

Porter v. Osborn, 546 F.3d 1131, 1139 (9th Cir. 2008)

(“[W]hen an officer encounters fast paced circumstances 

presenting competing public safety obligations, the purpose 

to harm standard must apply.”). 

We conclude that the situation in this case is one that 

escalated quickly, requiring officers to respond promptly

without “the luxury . . . of having time to make unhurried 

judgments.” County of Sacramento, 523 U.S. at 853; 

Sanderlin, 116 F.4th at 914 (finding that “officers obviously 

have a legitimate safety interest in controlling a mass of 

people” and that such circumstances can force “split-second 

judgments” (simplified)). It is therefore governed by the 

“purpose to harm” standard. Although the situation in the 

Free Speech Zone may not have risen to the level of an actual 

“riot,” see County of Sacramento, 523 U.S. at 852–53 

(referring to a “prison riot” as an archetypal situation in 

which “a much higher standard of fault than deliberate 

indifference has to be shown for officer liability”), it 

presented significant public safety concerns that warranted 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 35

prompt action. It is undisputed that the decision to disperse 

the crowd in this case was made over the course of three 

minutes between 8:34 and 8:36 PM, after members of the 

crowd had thrown at officers both a canister emitting an 

unknown gas and a pyrotechnic device. Moreover, in the 

minutes immediately preceding this decision, the crowd had 

become increasingly unruly, with suspected Antifa members 

attempting to breach the fence separating the Free Speech 

Zone from the Public Safety Zone. Persons in the crowd 

were also throwing objects with increasing frequency,

despite PPD’s more targeted deployment of pepper balls to 

deter such behavior. On top of that, these events occurred 

contemporaneously with the President of the United States 

departing the immediate vicinity. We conclude that, based 

on the undisputed facts, the rapidly deteriorating situation 

had evolved into one requiring quick judgments under 

pressure, and that the “purpose to harm” standard therefore 

governs.

Applying that standard, we conclude that there is no 

triable issue of any such purpose to harm here. Plaintiffs 

point to “nothing in the record suggesting that the officers 

had an improper purpose to harm” at the time they decided 

to employ chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades to 

disperse the crowd. See Ochoa, 26 F.4th at 1058. The level 

of force here is not so gratuitous as to give rise to a 

reasonable inference that it was applied for the purpose of 

inflicting harm rather than for the “legitimate law 

enforcement objectives” of “self-protection, and protection 

of the public.” Id. at 1056 (citations omitted). Any such 

inference is all the more unreasonable given the undisputed 

record evidence about the officers’ overall restrained 

management of the protest prior to the decision to clear the 

Free Speech Zone. Plaintiffs argue that a contrary inference 

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36 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

is nonetheless warranted in light of the fact that, sometime 

after the protest, an unknown person arranged for the 

creation of a commemorative coin that mockingly displayed 

a protester being hit by a munition, and several PPD officers 

possessed or distributed the coins. But such later-occurring 

events, even if distasteful, have “minimal relevance” 

because they “took place after the officers” applied the force 

in question. Id. at 1058 (reaching a similar conclusion about 

officers’ alleged “cheering and laughing,” after the fact,

about their use of force).

Because the Fourteenth Amendment’s “purpose to 

harm” standard (rather than the Fourth Amendment’s 

reasonableness standard) governs the Defendant officers’ 

use of chemical irritants and flash-bangs against the class 

members, and because there is no triable issue of such a 

purpose to harm, the district court correctly granted 

summary judgment against the class on its claims of 

excessive force in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth 

Amendments. 

III

We turn next to the individual excessive-force claims 

asserted by Plaintiffs Yedlin, Travis, and Guillen. 

These claims are presented to us in the context of the 

individual Defendants’ interlocutory appeal of the denial of 

qualified immunity to them on these claims. “Our de novo 

review of a grant [or denial] of summary judgment based on 

qualified immunity involves two distinct steps.” Sandoval 

v. Las Vegas Metro. Police Dep’t, 756 F.3d 1154, 1160 (9th 

Cir. 2014). Specifically, government officials are entitled to 

qualified immunity “unless (1) they violated a federal 

statutory or constitutional right, and (2) the unlawfulness of 

their conduct was ‘clearly established at the time.’” District 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 37

of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 62–63 (2018) (citation 

omitted). “A right is clearly established when it is 

‘sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have 

understood that what he is doing violates that right.’” RivasVillegas v. Cortesluna, 595 U.S. 1, 5 (2021) (quoting 

Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 11 (2015)). “We may address 

these two prongs in either order.” Sandoval, 756 F.3d at 

1160 (citing Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 

(2009)).

To the extent that these Plaintiffs’ individual excessiveforce claims overlap with the class’s claims, our earlier 

analysis governs as well, and those claims fail at the first 

prong of the qualified immunity analysis. However, each of 

these three Plaintiffs’ situations differs from the class claims 

in that each of them individually experienced a direct 

physical impact from a munition fired by a PPD officer. Our 

earlier analysis finding no “seizure” with respect to the class 

claims therefore does not carry over to these Plaintiffs’ 

individual claims based on such physical impacts. However, 

we need not resolve whether these individual Plaintiffs 

experienced a temporary “seizure” when they were directly 

impacted by physical objects that were potentially 

momentarily disabling. See Nelson, 685 F.3d at 877. Even 

assuming that they were, we conclude that, based on the 

undisputed facts, the Defendant officers were entitled to 

qualified immunity because they acted reasonably under the 

circumstances or violated no clearly established law.

A

We first address Yedlin’s individual excessive-force 

claim.

As noted earlier, around 8:32 PM on August 22, 2017,

members of the crowd began aggressively pushing the fence 

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38 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

separating the Free Speech Zone from the Public Safety 

Zone in an apparent attempt to breach it. Plaintiff Ira Yedlin 

was among the members of the crowd shaking the fence. 

Defendant Moore ordered Defendant officers to fire pepper 

balls at the ground directly in front of the group, which 

caused the group to back away. Grenadiers fired additional 

pepper balls at individuals who did not disperse. Yedlin,

who had initially retreated after the first volley, resumed 

shaking the fence within 11 seconds of his retreat, and at that 

point he was struck several times by pepper balls—in the 

face, lower back, and in three places on the legs. 

“[W]hether an officer has used excessive force” in 

violation of the Fourth Amendment’s objective 

reasonableness standard “‘requires careful attention to the 

facts and circumstances of each particular case, 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.’” Kisela v. Hughes, 584 U.S. 100, 103 

(2018) (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396). We also consider 

“the availability of less intrusive alternatives to the force 

employed and whether warnings were given.” Felarca, 891 

F.3d at 817. Whether there is an immediate threat to physical 

safety is generally the most important consideration. Young 

v. County of Los Angeles, 655 F.3d 1156, 1163 (9th Cir. 

2011). “The ‘reasonableness’ of a particular use of force 

must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer 

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

Graham, 490 U.S. at 396. The reasonableness analysis must 

further “embody allowance for the fact that police officers 

are often forced to make split-second judgments—in 

circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly 

evolving—about the amount of force that is necessary in a 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 39

particular situation.” Id. at 396–97. We have emphasized

that the “ultimate inquiry” always remains “whether the 

totality of the circumstances justifies a particular sort of 

seizure.” Young, 655 F.3d at 1163 (simplified). 

We have previously described as “significant” the risk of 

physical harm from the physical impact of pepper balls.

Nelson, 685 F.3d at 879. In Nelson, the “actual harm 

caused” was also quite serious, because Nelson was 

“rendered immobile,” experienced “temporary blindness,” 

suffered “permanent loss of visual acuity,” and was “forced 

to endure multiple surgeries.” Id. at 875, 879. Yedlin’s 

actual injuries, which consisted predominantly of bruising, 

were not as serious as those in Nelson. Accordingly, the 

district court properly characterized the resulting physical 

force used against Yedlin as “intermediate.” 

Defendants do not contend that Yedlin was committing 

a crime at the time he was struck by the pepper balls, and the 

record does not disclose that there was any attempt to 

actually arrest Yedlin or that he resisted any such arrest. As 

a result, this is not a situation in which the use of force can 

be justified by either the “severity of the crime at issue” or 

the need to overcome resistance to arrest. Graham, 490 U.S. 

at 396. Rather, Defendants’ asserted justification for the 

particular deployment of force that struck Yedlin was “the 

severity of the security problem at issue,” Kingsley v. 

Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389, 397 (2015), and the immediate 

threat that Yedlin’s actions created in that regard. The PPD 

had a very significant interest in avoiding any breach of the 

security fence separating the Free Speech Zone from the 

Public Safety Zone, because that would present an 

immediate and substantial threat to the safety of the officers, 

nearby members of the public, and potentially even the 

President’s motorcade. By returning and vigorously shaking 

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40 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

the fence just seconds after the PPD had repelled an apparent 

attempt to breach it, Yedlin posed an immediate threat to the 

PPD’s ability to maintain this boundary. Cf. Nelson, 685 

F.3d at 880–81 (noting that police officers faced no 

immediate security concerns at the time they fired pepper 

balls at Nelson). Moreover, although no verbal warnings 

were given, see Felarca, 891 F.3d at 817, that carries little 

weight here given that Yedlin returned to the fence after a 

prior round of pepper balls had just been fired to the ground 

to prevent what the officers reasonably perceived to be an 

attempt by suspected Antifa members to breach the fence. 

Yedlin was thereby actually on notice of such a potential use 

of force even without verbal warnings. 

Examining the totality of the circumstances, we conclude 

that, as a matter of law, Defendants’ use of intermediate 

force against Yedlin was a reasonable response that was

“commensurate[]” to the PPD’s strong interest in avoiding 

any breach of the fence. Young, 655 F.3d at 1163; see also

Nelson, 685 F.3d at 882 (“[O]fficers ‘are not required to use 

the least intrusive degree of force possible’” (citation 

omitted)). Consequently, Yedlin’s Fourth and Fourteenth 

Amendment rights were not violated. We therefore 

conclude that the relevant individual Defendants were 

entitled to qualified immunity on Yedlin’s claim and that the 

district court erred in concluding otherwise. 

B

We next address the individual excessive-force claim 

asserted by Travis. 

After the PPD made several attempts to disperse the 

crowd and announced an unlawful assembly from a 

helicopter above the Free Speech Zone, at about 9:02 PM a 

police vehicle arrived at one corner of the Free Speech Zone 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 41

and repeatedly communicated further unlawful assembly 

announcements. Some individuals remained on Second 

Street, including Travis. PPD then formed a “skirmish line” 

and moved north on Second Street, using pepper balls to 

disperse the remaining individuals, particularly those that 

PPD officers perceived as aggressive. 

Undisputed video evidence and Travis’s own testimony 

show that Travis intentionally approached the moving 

skirmish line in order to “get a shot of [it]” with her camera. 

Travis positioned herself “right in front” of the skirmish line, 

at a distance of “about ten to [fifteen] feet,” as it marched 

forward. The video evidence demonstrates that Travis 

moved toward the skirmish line even after officers had 

begun deploying chemical spray at the crowd in her 

immediate vicinity. After taking her photos, Travis turned 

and began to slowly walk away from the police line, at which 

point police fired a weapon toward her at close range, the 

force of which grazed her shoulder, knocked her sunglasses 

off of the top of her head, and caused her to fall over.

Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Travis, she 

was targeted with a “muzzle blast”—a burst of chemical 

powder with irritating properties—as well as pepper spray 

and an unknown projectile. Travis walked home shortly 

thereafter, which she was able to do unassisted. Travis was 

left with a burning sensation in her eyes for roughly fifteen 

minutes, a temporary cough, and bruising on her backside 

that caused her to miss a day of work. 

We conclude that Defendants’ use of force against Travis 

was objectively reasonable. As with Yedlin, Travis’s actual 

injuries were nowhere near as serious as those in Nelson, and 

we view the force deployed against her as intermediate. See

Nelson, 685 F.3d at 875, 879. Like Yedlin, Travis was not 

being arrested and was not resisting arrest. However, unlike 

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42 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

Yedlin’s situation, Travis was struck after she remained in 

the area in clear disregard of the repeated announcement that 

an unlawful assembly had been declared and after multiple 

orders to disperse had been issued. Moreover, Travis chose 

to place herself directly in front of the advancing skirmish 

line, and in doing so, she placed herself between the officers 

and near the remaining crowd behind her, which was

continually throwing objects at the officers. That Travis 

chose to place herself in that situation does not diminish the 

PPD’s strong interests in addressing the lawlessness behind 

her, in maintaining the advance of the skirmish line, and in 

enforcing the unlawful-assembly order. Viewing all of the 

circumstances in context, the repeated applications of force 

made by the advancing officers, including the particular 

blast that impacted Travis, were reasonable measures to 

accomplish the PPD’s substantial interests in public safety. 

See Forrester v. City of San Diego, 25 F.3d 804, 807–08 (9th 

Cir. 1994) (noting the distinctive public safety interests 

involved with responding to organized and concerted 

lawlessness). 

But even if we were to assume that the Defendant

officers violated Travis’s Fourth Amendment rights, they are 

nevertheless entitled to qualified immunity because the 

relevant right asserted by Travis was not clearly established. 

For a right to have been “clearly established,” it must have 

had a “sufficiently clear foundation” in precedent at the time 

of the challenged conduct. Wesby, 583 U.S. at 63. This 

typically means that then-existing precedent must have 

“clearly prohibit[ed] the officer’s conduct in the particular 

circumstances before him,” id., but general rules may suffice 

to clearly establish the illegality of an officer’s action in an 

“obvious case,” Kisela, 584 U.S. at 105 (citation omitted). 

Here, Plaintiffs do not cite any case that could have “clearly 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 43

establish[ed]” that Defendants’ use of force against Travis 

was objectively unreasonable. The closest case is Nelson, 

which similarly dealt with the use of projectile chemical 

tools against an unruly group. But the defendants in Nelson

deployed force against a group of college partiers at an 

apartment complex who had already been effectively 

confined by police and were peacefully awaiting instructions 

on how and when they could leave. See Nelson, 685 F.3d at 

872–74. Furthermore, there was no objective indication of 

any “threatening or dangerous behavior.” Id. at 880–81. 

These differences, among others, make clear that Nelson “is 

materially distinguishable” and thus does not clearly 

establish the law governing this case. Rivas-Villegas, 595 

U.S. at 6. And this is plainly not an “obvious” case in which 

every reasonable officer would have recognized that the 

Defendant officers’ conduct was unlawful. 

For these reasons, we conclude that the district court 

erred in failing to grant summary judgment, on qualified 

immunity grounds, to the relevant individual Defendants

with respect to Travis’s excessive-force claims. 

C

We turn next to Guillen’s excessive-force claim.

The use of force against Plaintiff Guillen occurred at the 

intersection of Monroe Street and Third Street—the eastern 

edge of the Free Speech Zone. At the time, protesters in the 

area directly across from the Phoenix Convention Center had 

been dispersed, but many protesters remained in the larger 

area. Although Defendant Moore had already decided to 

declare an unlawful assembly at this time, PPD had not yet 

begun broadcasting that order to the protesters. Prior to 

escalating their use of force, the PPD officers across from 

Guillen’s section of the Free Speech Zone deployed inert 

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44 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

smoke on the ground in front of the police fence. Guillen 

expressed confusion over the officers’ intention, although 

her companion stated that he believed the PPD wanted the 

protesters to “go home.” Uncontroverted video evidence 

shows that, at 8:50 PM, an unidentified object was fired into 

the crowd of protesters from the direction of the Public 

Safety Zone. This prompted most of the protesters present 

at the intersection—including Guillen—to walk northward 

along Third Street, away from the police fence. She was hit 

by a projectile of some kind in her stomach and upper hip, 

causing her to bleed. Video shows that Guillen was able to 

walk with some assistance from her friend. According to 

Guillen, this wound caused her severe pain in the immediate 

aftermath of the protest, as well as for several days 

afterward. Additionally, Guillen claims that the range of 

movement in her leg has not fully returned, and that she now 

requires the use of an inhaler. 

Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Guillen, 

the PPD’s use of force against her constituted a seizure, and 

we conclude that there is a triable issue as to whether that 

use of force was objectively unreasonable. There are a 

number of features surrounding the particular use of force 

that struck Guillen that distinguish it from the uses of force 

against Yedlin and Travis. In particular, in contrast to 

Travis’s situation, the video evidence does not show any 

obviously unlawful or threatening conduct occurring in

Guillen’s immediate vicinity prior to the relevant 

Defendants’ use of force. Nor did Guillen engage in any 

personal conduct, as Yedlin had done, that itself presented a 

risk to public safety. Guillen was also not disobeying any 

orders—at the time, no announcement of an unlawful 

assembly had been made, and the video evidence indicates 

that she was confused as to what she was supposed to do. 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 45

But in the absence of the sort of factors we noted with respect 

to Yedlin and Travis, we conclude that, even if Guillen had

“heard and was in non-compliance with the officers’ orders 

to disperse, this single act of non-compliance, without any 

attempt to threaten the officers or place them at risk,” would 

not make reasonable the particular use of chemical 

projectiles against her, causing the moderately serious 

injuries she experienced. See Nelson, 685 F.3d at 882.

Nonetheless, we conclude that Nelson is “materially 

distinguishable” in several respects and that it therefore did 

not “clearly establish” that the relevant Defendants’ actions 

violated Guillen’s rights. First, Nelson emphasized the

overall “absence of exigency involved” in the officers’ 

dispersal of the gathering at issue in that case. 685 F.3d at 

880. Though the officers in that case “plainly had an interest 

in clearing [an] apartment complex” of rowdy college 

partiers once the owner of the complex requested it, we 

found that “the desire to do so quickly, in the absence of any 

actual exigency, [could not] legitimize the application of 

force when it is not otherwise justified.” Id. Thus, Nelson 

did not involve the larger exigent public safety concerns that 

are present in the overall context of this case. Second, we 

emphasized in Nelson that Nelson was part of a group of 

“students gathered with [him] in the breezeway” of the 

apartment, which was a separate and “very narrow and 

confined space,” and that several of the “defendant officers 

stated in their depositions that they did not see anyone in 

Nelson’s group throwing bottles or engaging in any other 

threatening or dangerous behavior.” Id. at 873, 880. 

Although there was no apparent misconduct in Guillen’s 

immediate area at the time that she was struck, she was not 

in a discretely separate zone from those down the block in 

the Free Speech Zone who were still engaged in such acts. 

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46 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

Moreover, the officers were reasonably concerned about the 

possibility of troublemakers “circulat[ing] anonymously 

within the larger crowd of protesters.” Third, although (like 

Nelson) no verbal order to disperse had been given at that 

point, there had been (unlike Nelson) numerous objective 

indicia that the police were trying to clear the area. 

Because no precedent “‘squarely governs’ the specific 

facts at issue” and because this is not an “obvious case,” 

Kisela, 584 U.S. at 104–05 (citations omitted), we conclude 

that the relevant Defendants are entitled to qualified 

immunity with respect to the force used against Guillen. 

Accordingly, on that basis, we reverse the district court’s 

denial of summary judgment to the relevant individual 

Defendants. 

IV

We turn next to the First Amendment claims, which are 

asserted by all Plaintiffs, on their own behalf and on behalf 

of the classes. 

A

We have stated that “protests or assemblies cannot be 

dispersed on the ground that they are unlawful unless they 

‘are violent or pose a clear and present danger of imminent 

violence’ or they are violating some other law in the 

process.” Collins v. Jordan, 110 F.3d 1363, 1371 (9th Cir. 

1996) (citation omitted); see also id. (stating that “enjoining 

or preventing First Amendment activities before 

demonstrators have acted illegally or before the 

demonstration poses a clear and present danger is 

presumptively a First Amendment violation”). Plaintiffs 

contend that the PPD’s dispersal of the class members 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 47

violated the First Amendment because, in their view, the 

requisite “clear and present danger” was not present. 

Whether a particular situation presents a clear and 

present danger of imminent lawlessness must be evaluated 

under an objective standard, rather than based on the 

subjective apprehensions of the officers. Johnson v. Perry, 

859 F.3d 156, 171 (2d Cir. 2017) (stating that “[f]ear of 

serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech 

and assembly” and that “there must be reasonable ground to 

fear that serious evil will result” (emphasis omitted) (citation 

omitted)). Moreover, in assessing whether a sufficient clear 

and present danger justifies dispersal of a crowd, “[i]t is the 

tenor of the demonstration as a whole that determines 

whether the police may intervene; and if it is substantially 

infected with violence or obstruction the police may act to 

control it as a unit.” Washington Mobilization Comm. v. 

Cullinane, 566 F.2d 107, 120 (D.C. Cir. 1977) (citing 

Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U.S. 104, 16 (1972)). 

Accordingly, the question here is whether the conduct of the 

persons in the Free Speech Zone, taken as a whole, created 

objectively reasonable grounds to conclude that there was a 

“clear and present danger of riot, disorder, interference with 

traffic upon the public streets, or other immediate threat to 

public safety, peace, or order.” Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 

U.S. 296, 308 (1940); see also Grayned, 408 U.S. at 116 

(“[W]here demonstrations turn violent, they lose their 

protected quality as expression under the First 

Amendment.”).

We conclude that, based on the undisputed facts, there 

were sufficient objectively reasonable grounds to establish 

the requisite “clear and present danger” of an “immediate 

threat to public safety, peace, or order.” The decision that 

the assembly had become unlawful was made by Moore at

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48 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

some point during the minutes of 8:34 to 8:36 PM, after

unknown persons in the crowd had thrown into the Public 

Safety Zone a canister emitting an unidentified gas as well 

as a pyrotechnic device. By that point, the PPD had already 

repelled, through the use of chemical munitions, one

organized attempt to breach the police fence that separated

protesters from the Public Safety Zone. Despite that limited 

use of force, it is undisputed that the suspected Antifa 

members who had attempted to breach the Public Safety 

Zone then proceeded to “circulate anonymously within the 

larger crowd of protesters,” followed by a significant

escalation of “objects being thrown from the crowd.” It was 

only after this escalation occurred and, in particular, after the 

gas canister and pyrotechnic device were thrown, that the 

PPD began to disperse the protesters from the Free Speech 

Zone. Whatever the outer boundaries of the “clear and 

present danger” test may be, we think that circumstances 

involving the use of unidentified gas and pyrotechnic

devices by agitators dispersed throughout a crowd, 

escalating violence toward the officers, an organized attempt 

to breach a police line, and the exigent concern of 

presidential security, falls within it. 

Accordingly, we hold that Defendants were properly 

granted summary judgment with respect to Plaintiffs’ First 

Amendment claim that there was an insufficient “clear and 

present danger” to justify dispersal of the Free Speech Zone. 

But even if we assumed that there was a triable issue on that 

score, we conclude that Plaintiffs have failed to identify any 

precedent that would clearly establish that Defendants 

violated Plaintiffs’ rights in the context that they confronted. 

See Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765, 778–79 (2014) 

(stating that, for a right to be “clearly established,” the 

“right’s contours” must have been “sufficiently definite that 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 49

any reasonable official in the defendant’s shoes would have 

understood that he was violating it”). Accordingly, the 

individual Defendants are also entitled to qualified immunity 

on this claim. 

B

It is not entirely clear from Plaintiffs’ briefs whether 

Plaintiffs are contending that a First Amendment retaliation 

claim may properly be asserted in the crowd-dispersal 

context in addition to a clear-and-present-danger claim or 

only as an alternative to it. There are strong arguments that 

a conventional First Amendment retaliation framework, with 

its focus on subjective causation, is a poor fit for the crowddispersal context, because it adds little to the objective clearand-present-danger analysis and will often raise 

“particularly difficult” causation questions. Nieves v. 

Bartlett, 587 U.S. 391, 402 (2019) (relying upon similar 

concerns in holding that First Amendment retaliatory arrest 

claims require a showing of a lack of objective probable 

cause). But we need not resolve any such issues because, 

even assuming that conventional First Amendment 

retaliation principles may also be applied here, we conclude 

that there is no triable issue that the dispersal of the crowd 

was undertaken with retaliatory intent.

As the district court correctly concluded, the undisputed 

facts do not support a reasonable inference of retaliatory 

intent. The PPD worked in advance to coordinate with 

protesters in order to ensure that the protests were conducted 

peacefully, and the protests went on without any serious 

incident for several hours. When problems then began to 

arise, the PPD initially responded with more limited 

measures and only decided to disperse the crowd when the 

requisite objective clear and present danger had 

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50 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

materialized. On these facts, no reasonable jury could 

conclude that the dispersal was in fact subjectively 

motivated by antipathy to Plaintiffs’ political speech. 

Plaintiffs again point to the after-the-fact distribution, 

among some officers, of a commemorative coin that 

mockingly displayed a protester being hit in the groin by a 

munition and that bore the politicized inscription “Making 

America great again one nut at a time.” But such lateroccurring conduct by individual officers, even if distasteful 

or immature, does not provide a sufficient basis for 

reasonably inferring, in the context of all of the 

circumstances of this case, that the actions taken in 

immediate response to a clear and present danger were 

instead undertaken because of hostility to the protesters’ 

views. Cf. Ochoa, 26 F.4th at 1058. We affirm the district 

court’s grant of summary judgment on this claim.

C

Plaintiffs also argue that their First Amendment rights 

were violated because Defendants failed to issue a verbal 

dispersal order before beginning to try to disperse the crowd. 

We disagree.

Plaintiffs contend that the Second Circuit’s decision in 

Jones v. Parmley, 465 F.3d 46 (2d Cir. 2006), supports their 

view that the First Amendment always requires a verbal 

dispersal order. That is wrong. Jones held that such a verbal 

order was required in the context of a “peaceful protest” in 

which, without warning and in the absence of a clear and 

present danger, the police “charged into the crowd, arresting 

protesters indiscriminately.” Id. at 60 & n.5. Indeed, Jones

made clear in a footnote that it did not adopt any per se rule. 

See id. at 60 n.5 (stating that the court “ha[s] no occasion to 

determine whether police would be permitted to disperse 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 51

without warning a crowd more akin to a mob than the 

peaceful protest plaintiffs describe”); see also Garcia v. 

Does, 779 F.3d 84, 94 n.11 (2d Cir. 2015) (rejecting the view 

that Jones establishes a per se rule of advance notice). We 

reject Plaintiffs’ claim that the First Amendment required a 

verbal dispersal order before officers could begin 

undertaking measures to clear the Free Speech Zone.7

V

We affirm the district court’s summary judgment to 

Defendant Police Chief Williams. Plaintiffs contend that, as 

a supervisor, she was liable for the individual officers’ 

violations of their constitutional rights. To establish such

liability, Plaintiffs must demonstrate that Williams either 

“participated in or directed the violations, or knew of the 

violations of subordinates and failed to act to prevent them.” 

Preschooler II v. Clark County Sch. Bd. of Trs., 479 F.3d 

1175, 1182 (9th Cir. 2007) (simplified). But there can be no 

such supervisorial liability in the absence of an underlying 

constitutional violation. Moreover, we have held that, when 

the subordinate officers have not been shown to have 

“violated a clearly established right, it necessarily follows

that [their police supervisors] cannot have violated a clearly 

established right by supervising” those officers. Felarca, 

891 F.3d at 823. Because we have concluded that all of 

Plaintiffs’ claims either fail or did not involve the violation 

7 We express no view as to whether other provisions of the Constitution 

might require advance notice before undertaking steps such as, for 

example, individual arrests for failing to disperse. Cf. Barham v. 

Ramsey, 434 F.3d 565, 575–76 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (stating that the “Fourth 

Amendment” requires that, in clearing an “unruly demonstration,” 

officers must “invok[e] a valid legal mechanism for clearing the area and 

then provid[e] an opportunity for affected persons to follow an order to 

disperse”).

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52 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

of a clearly established right, Plaintiffs’ claims of 

supervisorial liability necessarily fail. On that basis, we 

affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to 

Williams.8 

VI

Lastly, we address Plaintiffs’ claims of municipal 

liability against the City of Phoenix under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. 

A municipality “may be liable in a §1983 action . . . 

when the plaintiff proves that the municipality caused the 

plaintiff’s injury.” Barone v. City of Springfield, Oregon, 

902 F.3d 1091, 1106–07 (9th Cir. 2018) (citing Monell, 436 

U.S. at 691). Municipal liability will not result from every 

wrongful act committed by an employee, but only those

which occur pursuant to “official policy . . . for which the 

municipality is actually responsible.” Pembaur v. City of 

Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 479 (1986) (simplified). “Official 

policy” includes “decisions of a government’s lawmakers,

the acts of its policymaking officials, and practices so 

persistent and widespread as to practically have the force of 

law.” Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51, 61 (2011). A 

municipality may also be liable for “decision[s] not to train 

certain employees about their legal duty to avoid violating 

citizens’ rights,” but such liability arises only where the

failure to train “amounts to deliberate indifference to the 

rights of persons with whom the untrained employees come 

into contact.” Id. (quoting City of Canton, Ohio v. Harris, 

489 U.S. 378, 388 (1989)) (simplified). 

On appeal, Plaintiffs rely on two theories of municipal 

liability: (1) a final policymaker caused the allegedly

8 For the same reason, the district court erred in holding that Moore and 

McBride could be held liable under a supervisorial liability theory. See 

supra note 4.

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 53

unconstitutional acts, and (2) the city’s failure to train its 

officers amounted to “deliberate indifference.” Viewing the 

record in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, we agree with 

the district court that there is no genuine issue of material 

fact that could support either of these arguments.

A

A municipality may be liable for constitutional 

violations if the municipal employee who caused the 

plaintiff’s constitutional injury is an official with “final 

policymaking authority.” City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 

485 U.S. 112, 123 (1988). Plaintiffs argue that the district 

court erred when it determined that the City Council and City 

Manager—but not Defendant Chief Williams—were the 

relevant final policymakers for the City of Phoenix. We 

need not resolve this issue. As explained above, Plaintiffs 

have raised a triable issue as to only one constitutional 

violation—namely, the individual excessive-force claim 

asserted by Guillen. Even assuming that Chief Williams had 

final policymaking authority, Plaintiffs have failed to raise a 

triable issue that Chief Williams caused or ratified the use 

of excessive force against Guillen. See Chudacoff v. 

University Med. Ctr. of S. Nev., 649 F.3d 1143, 1151 (9th 

Cir. 2011) (stating that, to establish Monell liability based on 

the actions of “an individual with ‘final policymaking 

authority,’” the plaintiff must show that the constitutional 

“injury was caused or ratified” by that person (citation 

omitted)).

In arguing that Chief Williams’s conduct suffices to 

establish municipal liability, Plaintiffs emphasize that she 

“was the final policymaker for law-enforcement matters 

related to President Trump’s rally” and that she oversaw the 

preparations for the event and “personally briefed the TRU 

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54 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

squad before they went out.” But these contentions, at best, 

are directed at Chief Williams’s asserted role in the overall

preparation for, and management of, the event. These points 

might conceivably have had some persuasive force if we had 

found triable violations of the class members’ constitutional 

rights in the course of the event, but we have rejected all of 

the classes’ claims on the merits. What we have found, 

instead, is a single specific use of force against Guillen that, 

under the distinctive circumstances of her situation, a 

reasonable jury could find to be excessive. Even assuming 

arguendo that Chief Williams established municipal policy 

for the overall management of the event, Plaintiffs have 

proffered no evidence that Chief Williams caused the 

situation-specific use of excessive force against Guillen. See 

Board of the Cnty. Comm’rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 404 

(1997) (stating that “it is not enough for a § 1983 plaintiff 

merely to identify conduct properly attributable to the 

municipality” and that “[t]he plaintiff must also demonstrate 

that, through its deliberate conduct, the municipality was the 

‘moving force’ behind the injury alleged” and that this 

requires a showing of “the requisite degree of culpability” as 

well as “a direct causal link between the municipal action 

and the deprivation of federal rights”).9

Plaintiffs alternatively argue that Chief Williams 

subsequently “ratified PPD’s conduct” in her “post-rally 

9 We reject Plaintiffs’ argument that municipal liability here can rest on 

the theory that Chief Williams delegated her asserted final policymaking 

authority to Moore, who then caused the use of excessive force against 

Guillen. At most, Plaintiffs have established that Moore exercised 

discretion to act in the field pursuant to municipal policies established by 

others, which we have held is not sufficient to establish a delegation of 

municipal policymaking authority for purposes of municipal liability 

under § 1983. See Christie v. Iopa, 176 F.3d 1231, 1236–37 (9th Cir. 

1999); Tevino v. Gates, 99 F.3d 911, 920 (9th Cir. 1996).

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 55

public statements.” “To show ratification, a plaintiff must 

show that the ‘authorized policymakers approve a 

subordinate’s decision and the basis for it.’” Lytle v. Carl, 

382 F.3d 978, 987 (9th Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). Here, 

Plaintiffs have failed to present sufficient evidence that 

Chief Williams knew and approved of the particular use of 

force against Guillen, much less that she endorsed the “basis 

for it.” Id. Plaintiffs have instead presented evidence that 

Chief Williams arguably ratified the overall management of 

the event, which we have held has not been shown to have 

been constitutionally deficient.

B

As to Plaintiffs’ “failure to train” theory, Plaintiffs failed 

to present sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable trier of 

fact to find that the City of Phoenix was “deliberately

indifferent” to Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights. 

A municipality incurs liability for a failure to train when 

“the need for more or different training is so obvious, and 

the inadequacy so likely to result in the violation of 

constitutional rights, that the policymakers of the city can 

reasonably be said to have been deliberately indifferent to 

the need.” City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 390. “Deliberate 

indifference” is “a stringent standard of fault, requiring proof 

that a municipal actor disregarded a known or obvious 

consequence of his action.” Hyun Ju Park v. City & County 

of Honolulu, 952 F.3d 1136, 1141 (9th Cir. 2020) (quoting 

Board of County Comm’rs of Bryan County, Okl. v. Brown, 

520 U.S. 397, 410 (1997)). To succeed on a “failure to train” 

theory of Monell liability, it is thus “ordinarily necessary” 

for a plaintiff to demonstrate “[a] pattern of similar 

constitutional violations by untrained employees.” Connick, 

563 U.S. at 62. However, the Court has left open the 

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56 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

possibility that “a single violation of federal rights, 

accompanied by a showing that the municipality has failed 

to train its employees to handle recurring situations

presenting an obvious potential for such a violation, could 

trigger municipal liability.” Brown, 520 U.S. at 409.

Plaintiffs base their “failure to train” argument on the 

assertion that, although the City of Phoenix extensively

trains PPD officers “on how to use” chemical agents to 

disperse protesters, it failed to properly teach them “whether 

or when” to do so. As previously discussed, we have found

no triable issue as to whether Defendants committed a 

constitutional violation in most claims in this case, but we 

disposed of Guillen’s excessive-force claim solely based on 

the “clearly established” prong of qualified immunity. 

Given that there therefore is a triable issue only as to whether 

Defendants caused Guillen to suffer a constitutional injury,

Plaintiffs’ “failure to train” claim rests on showing that 

Guillen’s injury in particular was the obvious result of the 

allegedly inadequate training. See Tsao v. Desert Palace, 

Inc., 698 F.3d 1128, 1145 (9th Cir. 2012). But Plaintiffs 

have failed to show that her constitutional injury was such 

an obvious consequence that PPD’s failure to more 

thoroughly train its officers on the use of chemical agents 

amounted to “deliberate indifference” toward her rights. 

Plaintiffs do not provide any basis to dispute the record 

evidence showing that the PPD did train its officers about 

“whether or when” to deploy chemical agents. The record, 

including portions cited by Plaintiffs, show that PPD officers 

received training on the responsibility to protect protesters’

“constitutional rights to assemble and exercise free speech” 

and were told that chemical agents should only be deployed 

when “absolutely necessary” and “other passive means have 

failed to restore order.” Furthermore, the record 

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PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX 57

demonstrates that the PPD instructed its commanders to 

issue dispersal warnings to the crowd “with significant 

amplification and repetition as necessary to be heard by the 

entire crowd” “if time and circumstances permit,” prior to 

the deployment of chemical agents. The PPD’s training

materials describe even the indirect use of pepper balls in 

particular as justified only “[t]o prevent the possibility of 

injury to an officer or another person,” or to “subdue a 

person who is threatening or attempting physical harm to self 

or another, resisting arrest, RIOTING, or interfering with an 

arrest.” 

Rather than cite any “instance[] of similar unlawful 

conduct” prior to the protest—let alone a pattern—that might 

provide the City with notice that its existing training 

program was inadequate, Plaintiffs instead assert that this 

case presents the “rare” fact pattern in which evidence of a 

single violation is enough to establish Monell liability under 

a “failure to train” theory. See Connick, 563 U.S. at 64. But 

the record indicates that, despite deploying at numerous 

protests every year, Grenadiers rarely resort to using 

chemical agents. Plaintiffs do not explain how Guillen’s 

alleged constitutional injury in this case is an “obvious 

consequence” of PPD’s current training regimen when the 

record indicates that PPD officers almost never deploy 

chemical agents, let alone illegally. Cf. Connick, 563 U.S. 

at 63–64 (stating that, in “the hypothetical example of a city 

that arms its police force with firearms and deploys the 

armed officers into the public to capture fleeing felons 

without training the officers in the constitutional limitation 

on the use of deadly force,” such a failure to train ”could 

reflect the city’s deliberate indifference” to constitutional 

violations, “[g]iven the known frequency with which police 

attempt to arrest fleeing felons and the ‘predictability that an 

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58 PUENTE V. CITY OF PHOENIX

officer lacking specific tools to handle that situation will 

violate citizens’ rights’” (citation omitted)). We therefore 

determine that the district court was correct that Plaintiffs 

failed to raise a material factual dispute regarding a “failure 

to train” for purposes of Monell. 

* * *

We therefore affirm the district court’s dismissal of 

Plaintiffs’ claims against Defendant City of Phoenix.

VII

We reverse the district court’s denial of summary 

judgment to the relevant individual Defendants on Plaintiffs 

Yedlin, Travis, and Guillen’s excessive-force claims and 

hold that these individual Defendants are entitled to qualified 

immunity. We affirm the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment to Defendants on all remaining claims.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, and 

REMANDED.

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