## United States Court of Appeals **For the Eighth Circuit**

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No. 21

- 2854

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Fontell Demann Fuller

Plaintiff - Appellee

v.
Stanley Hafoka, UNDER the Color of State Law, Individual Capacity & Official Capacity

Defendant - Appellant

Devin Sullivan, UNDER the Color of State Law, Individual Capacity & Official Capacity; Rob Erickson, UNDER the Color of State Law, Individual Capacity &

Officia l Capacity; Ahmed Dualeh, UNDER the Color of State Law, Individual Capacity & Official Capacity; Janet Snyder, UNDER the Color of State Law, Individual Capacity & Official Capacity; Taylor Kuseske, UNDER the Color of State Law, Individual Capacity & Offici al Capacity; Steven Routhe, UNDER The Color of State Law, Individual Capacity & Official Capacity

Defendant s

____________ Appeal from United States District Court for the District of Minnesota

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Submitted: October 20, 2 022 Filed: February 3, 20 23 [Unpublished]

____________-2- Before SMITH, Chief Judge, BENTON and STRAS, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

Officer Stanley Hafoka tackled Fontell Fuller, who was in jail awaiting trial. On summary judgment, the district court 1 den ied qualified immunity. We affirm.

I.

Following an arrest for possessing a firearm as a felon, Fuller spent time in
the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center. His stay included a stint in administrative segregation, where inmates can spend up to three hou rs a day in a glassed

- in recreation area. A panic button is available for emergencies

.

When Fuller wanted immediate access to his legal papers, he press ed the panic
button. An officer told him over the intercom that he could see them after filing a written request, but Fuller remained unsatisfied

. He continued to press the panic
button and make demands until he was ordered to return to his cell. Three officers

came to escort him.

A video camera captured what happened next. During the walk back

, the officers trailed behind him in a single

- file line. On the way, Fuller stopp ed at a tab le and pick ed up a few items: a hygiene kit, some papers, and maybe a pencil. H e then
hurled those items in front of him , which prompted Officer Hafoka to grab Fuller ’s
neck and slam him to the ground. Eventually, after handcuffing him, the officers pulled Fuller back to his feet.

1 The Honorable Patrick J. Schiltz, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the District of Minnesota.-3- Left with a fractured ankle, knee contusion, and lump on the forehead, Fuller
sued everyone involved under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Only one claim survived summary judgment: the one against Officer Hafoka for allegedly using excessive force against
him . Our task is to determine whether th e district court should have dismissed it too

.

II.

“Cases in which a district court denies qualified immunity at the summary

judgment stage typically follow one of two paths on appeal.” N.S. v. Kan. City Bd.

o

f Police Comm’rs , 933 F.3d 967, 969 (8th Cir. 2019). One is reversal b ecause , “under a plaintiff

- friendly version of the facts, there was no constitutional violation or the underlying right was not clearly established .” Id. Here, applying de novo review, we take the other path

. See Jones v. McNeese , 675 F.3d 1158, 116 1 (8th Cir. 2012). Accepting the district court’s factual presumptions

, we affirm because a reasonable jury could conclude that Officer Hafoka “ violat[ed]

. . . clearly
established law.” Graham v. St. Louis Metro. Police Dep’t , 933 F.3d 1007, 1009 (8th Cir. 2019) (citation omitted)

.

A.

P retrial detain ees have a right to be free from object ively unreasonable uses of force. See U.S. Const. amend . XIV; Kingsley v. Hendrickson , 576 U.S. 389, 396

– 97 (2015) ; see also Davis v. White , 794 F.3d 1008, 1011

– 12 (8th Cir. 2015) (explaining that the Fourth Amendment’s “objective[

- ]reasonableness standar d” applies to pretrial detainees). What matters are the “ facts and circumstances of each particular case. ” Kingsley , 576 U.S. at 397 (quoting Graham v. Connor , 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989)). 2

2 We deny all pending motions, including Fuller’s numerous challenges to appointed counsel’s decision to bring Kingsle y to our attention.-4- The key evidence here is a video recording showing the takedown

. R elied on by the district court in denying summary judgment , i t depicts Fuller walking “briskly” to his cell at the direction of the officers behind him

. Once he reached his cell door, however, he abruptly “fl[u] ng” his papers and personal items “against the wall directly in front of him .” But at no point did h e “ turn toward the trailing
officers .” See Kingsley , 576 U.S. at 397

.

On these facts, the district court concluded that nothing Fuller did qualified as

ac tive or passive resistan ce or posed “ a threat to [the officers’] safety.” Parrish v. Dingman , 912 F.3d 464, 468 (8th Cir. 2019) ; c f. H icks v. Norwood , 640 F.3d 839

, 842 (8th Cir. 2011) (concluding that an inmate leaping toward an officer justified
the use of force). Ind eed, r ight before the takedown, the video shows Fuller following instructions , even if he was visibly “angry” at the time.

Yet Officer Hafoka slammed him down onto a hard concrete floor using a
chokehold

- takedown maneuver

. There was no advance warning, nor was there any
effort “to temper or to limit the amount of force

. ” Kingsley , 576 U.S. at 397 . In a

non

- emergency situation like this one, a reasonable jury could conclude that he
crossed a constitutional line. See Smith v. Conway County , 759 F.3d 853, 859 (8 th Cir. 2014).

B.

And the constitutional line was clear ly established. As the district court explained

, it is clear that “a pretrial detainee who [is] agitated [yet] complying with
the last directive that he had been given and who [does] not pose an immediate threat
to himself or others” ha s a clearly established right “not to be violently taken to the ground without any warning.”

Several cases establish this principle. In one, we concluded that an offi cer went too far when he used a leg

- sweep maneuver to take down an individual who

“ was not threatening anyone, was not actively resisting arrest, and was not-5- attempting to flee. ” Montoya v. City of Flandreau , 669 F.3d 867, 871 (8th Cir. 2012); see Parrish , 912 F.3d at 467 (applying the Fourth Amendment standard to a pretrial- detainee case). The same goes for an officer who tackles or punches a non

violent and non

- threatening individual in an effort to bring him down. McReynolds
v. Schmid li , 4 F.4th 648, 654

– 55 (8th Cir. 2021) (tackling a sus pect ); Rohrbough v.
Hall , 586 F.3d 582, 585

– 86 (8th Cir. 2009) (punching a suspect in the face and then taking him down); see Smith , 759 F.3d at 8 60

– 61 ( reaching a similar conclusion in a pretrial

- detainee case). These cases clearly forbid a “violent [] tak e down ” of an in dividual “who [is] not threatening anyone” or “attempting to flee.” McReynolds

, 4 F.4th at 655.

III.

We accordingly affirm the judgment of the district court.

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