[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 21-10463

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 2:20-cv-14381-BB

DARRELL MARK BABCOCK, 

 Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 versus

ANDREA L. OLSON, 

Deputy, Martin County Sheriff's Office in individual capacity, 

WAYNE R. TROCAN, 

Deputy, Martin County Sheriff's Office in individual capacity, 

MARTIN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, SHERIFF, 

William D. Snyder, Sheriff in individual and official capacities, 

 Defendants-Appellees.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

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(September 14, 2021)

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Before NEWSOM, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

Darrell Babcock appeals the sua sponte dismissal of his pro se 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 complaint against Deputies Andrea Olson and Wayne Trocan and Sheriff 

William Snyder of the Martin County Sheriff’s Office. He asserts that the district 

court erred in finding that his amended complaint failed to raise allegations that 

state a plausible claim that defendants Olson and Trocan violated his Fourth 

Amendment right to privacy when they entered his property without a warrant in

response to an anonymous call reporting an ongoing fight. The district court 

dismissed Babcock’s claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). After careful 

review, we affirm.1

 

A failure-to-state-a-claim analysis under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) is 

governed by the same standard as dismissal for failure to state a claim under 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Mitchell v. Farcass, 112 F.3d 1483, 

1490 (11th Cir. 1997). A complaint fails to state a claim when it fails “to state a 

claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 

1 We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim. 

Brown v. Johnson, 387 F.3d 1344, 1347 (11th Cir. 2004). When an appeal arises from a motion 

to dismiss, we accept the allegations in the complaint as true, construing them in the light most 

favorable to the plaintiff. Taylor v. Polhill, 964 F.3d 975, 979 (11th Cir. 2020). We liberally 

construe pro se pleadings and hold them to less stringent standards than pleadings drafted by 

attorneys but require them to conform to procedural rules. Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 

(2007); Albra v. Advan, Inc., 490 F.3d 826, 829 (11th Cir. 2007). 

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U.S. 544, 570 (2007). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads 

factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the 

defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 

678 (2009). The Federal Rules don’t require that specific facts be pleaded for 

every element of every claim, but complaints must “contain either direct or 

inferential allegations respecting all the material elements necessary to sustain a 

recovery under some viable legal theory.” Fin. Sec. Assurance, Inc. v. Stephens, 

Inc., 500 F.3d 1276, 1282–83 (11th Cir. 2007). 

In order to state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must plead that 

he was deprived of a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States 

and that the alleged deprivation was committed under the color of state law. Am. 

Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 50 (1999). We have held that a Fourth 

Amendment claim for an illegal search is cognizable under § 1983. See Hughes v. 

Lott, 350 F.3d 1157, 1160 (11th Cir. 2003). 

The Fourth Amendment guarantees the “right of the people to be secure in 

their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and 

seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. The police may not conduct a warrantless 

search or arrest in one’s home absent exigent circumstances. Payton v. New York, 

445 U.S. 573, 590 (1980). Exigent circumstances exist when there is “no time to 

secure a warrant” and a “compelling need for official action,” such as “risk of harm 

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to the public or the police.” United States v. Holloway, 290 F.3d 1331, 1334 (11th 

Cir. 2002). The most urgent of these exigencies is “the need to protect or preserve 

life” in an emergency. Id. at 1335. For the exception to apply, the government 

must demonstrate that the officer had an objectively reasonable belief that an 

individual in the home was either seriously injured or threatened with such an 

injury. See Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398, 402–03, 406 (2006). 

We have found “police officers’ belief that someone inside a home needs 

immediate assistance [is] objectively reasonable” where there are “indicia of an 

urgent, ongoing emergency,” as where “officers have received emergency reports 

of an ongoing disturbance, arrived to find a chaotic scene, and observed violent 

behavior, or at least evidence of violent behavior.” United States v. Timmann, 741 

F.3d 1170, 1179 (11th Cir. 2013). The exigent-circumstances exception to the 

warrant requirement applies even where police, in responding to an emergency, 

must act based on hurried, incomplete, or “ambiguous information concerning 

potentially serious consequences.” Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1339 (quoting 3 Wayne 

LaFave, Search and Seizure § 6.6(a), at 391 (3d ed.1996)). While anonymous tips 

without indicia of reliability may not be reliable enough to justify investigatory 

stops in the absence of an emergency, Florida v. J.L. 529 U.S. 266, 270–71 (2000), 

“when an emergency is reported by an anonymous caller, the need for immediate 

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action may outweigh the need to verify the reliability of the caller.” Holloway, 290 

F.3d at 1339. 

Here, the district court didn’t err in dismissing Babcock’s complaint with 

prejudice. The court properly concluded that the facts that Babcock alleged 

demonstrated that Deputies Olson and Trocan acted under exigent circumstances in 

entering Babcock’s backyard. The amended complaint describes an anonymous 

call detailing a “full on fight” originating in Babcock’s backyard and a woman 

repeatedly yelling “stop” along with the presence of banging noises. Even though 

Deputies Olson and Trocan didn’t see evidence of violence when they arrived six 

minutes later, they had an objectively reasonable belief based on this anonymous 

call that a woman was in danger of serious bodily harm. The caller’s description 

of the scene as a “full on fight” combined with the woman repeatedly yelling stop 

and the presence of banging noises provided a sufficient basis for the deputies to 

reasonably conclude that there was a serious threat to the woman’s life constituting 

an ongoing emergency. Cf. Brigham City, 547 U.S.at 406. Acting on their

reasonable belief that someone was in serious danger, Deputies Olson and Trocan 

swept the backyard for evidence of violence and found the pop-up camper. 

Babcock asserts that Olson and Trocan had a duty to corroborate the 

anonymous call prior to entering the curtilage of his home. But when an 

emergency involving a serious threat to human life has been reported by an 

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anonymous caller, officers may be justified in taking immediate action even 

without corroborating the report. See Holloway, 290 F.3d at 1339. Moreover, the 

banging noises audible on the phone call corroborated the existence of a physical 

fight. Overall, this situation required the deputies to act based on a prompt 

assessment of hurried and incomplete information concerning potentially serious 

consequences, in a close parallel to the situation in Holloway, which upheld the 

constitutionality of the warrantless search. 290 F.3d at 1339. “Although the 

Fourth Amendment protects the sanctity of the home, its proscription against 

warrantless searches must give way to the sanctity of human life.” Id. at 1337. 

Finally, Babcock argues that the deputies violated his Fourth Amendment 

rights by remaining on his curtilage and questioning him for four hours, after the 

exigency had passed. This argument fails. It’s true that “a warrantless search must 

be strictly circumscribed by the exigencies which justify its initiation.” Mincey v. 

Arizona, 437 U.S. 385, 393 (1978). But here, the deputies discovered, shortly after 

arriving at Babcock’s property, a teenage girl with a bloodied leg, and Babcock 

showed the deputies a video of the girl holding a knife to her own throat while 

Babcock berated her. See United States v. Babcock, 924 F.3d 1180, 1185 (11th 

Cir. 2019). The deputies were therefore justified in remaining on the property to 

investigate further by questioning Babcock and the girl. 

* * *

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In sum: Because the facts as alleged by Babcock describe exigent 

circumstances that justify warrantless entry into the curtilage of his home, and the 

deputies didn’t exceed the scope of the exigency, his amended complaint fails to 

plead a facially plausible case that Deputies Olson and Trocan violated his Fourth 

Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. See Iqbal, 

556 U.S. at 678. Therefore, the district court properly concluded that Babcock’s 

complaint didn’t adequately state a claim upon which relief can be granted. 

Accordingly, the court did not err in dismissing the complaint under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). 

AFFIRMED.

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