[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-13070

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

KEVIN LAMAR BLAKE, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

ORANGE COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE,

Police Department, individual capacity,

et al.,

Defendants, 

ANDREW E. BRYANT, 

Deputy Sheriff, individual capacity, 

JORDAN M. DZIENDZIEL, 

Detective, individual capacity, 

USCA11 Case: 21-13070 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 07/26/2023 Page: 1 of 9
2 Opinion of the Court 21-13070

BRIAN P. SAVELLI, 

Detective, individual capacity, 

JULIE DEJESUS, 

Deputy First Class, individual capacity, 

Defendants-Appellees.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 6:19-cv-00494-GKS-EJK

____________________

Before JILL PRYOR,GRANT, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Kevin Blake, proceeding pro se, appeals an order granting 

summary judgment to four officers of the Orange County Sheriff’s 

Office. The district court awarded the officers qualified immunity 

from Blake’s excessive force claims because it held that the force 

used in restraining and moving him after an interrogation was 

objectively reasonable. Blake’s appeal, liberally construed, argues 

that qualified immunity was inappropriate because the defendants 

were not acting within their discretionary authority; that the force 

they used was not objectively reasonable and violated his Fourth 

Amendment rights; and that the law on that point was clearly 

USCA11 Case: 21-13070 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 07/26/2023 Page: 2 of 9
21-13070 Opinion of the Court 3

established at the time of his incident. We disagree with Blake and 

affirm the district court. 

I.

We interpret pro se complaints liberally and construe factual 

inferences in favor of the non-movant at the summary judgment 

stage. See Brown v. Crawford, 906 F.2d 667, 670 (11th Cir. 1990). 

Blake brought this § 1983 suit against five Orange County police

officers, but on appeal only three remain relevant: Detective 

Dziendziel, Detective Savelli, and Deputy Sheriff Bryant.1 

Blake was detained as a suspect in the armed robbery of a 

pizza delivery driver. After being transported to the station, he was 

placed in an interview room, where Dziendziel and Bryant tried to 

question him. Bryant read Blake his Miranda rights at the 

beginning of the conversation before Dziendziel arrived, and 

Dziendziel read the Miranda rights again several minutes later 

when he entered. 

The conversation over the next half hour was less than 

pleasant. As Blake admits, he “may have slightly been intoxicated”2

and he “urinated in the corner of the room, used excessive 

1 Deputy Sheriff Braden was dismissed from the action before summary 

judgment. In the summary judgment order, the district judge explained how 

Blake conceded that another officer—Deputy DeJesus—did not use any force 

against him. Blake does not contest that fact on appeal. 

2 He said on video “I don’t remember shit from no days, man, I get fucked up 

every day, hang out, chill, and drink, that’s what I do, I drink.” When asked 

to define “fucked up,” he said, “I mean drunk.” 

USCA11 Case: 21-13070 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 07/26/2023 Page: 3 of 9
4 Opinion of the Court 21-13070

profanity, acted rude and belligerent, and at one point during the 

end of the interview refused to sit down.” Explaining that decision, 

Blake says that he “stood from his chair taking a few steps toward 

the door hoping this would cause the Detective [Dziendziel] to end 

the interview. Instead of his decision forcing the interview to end 

it caused the situation to escalate out of control.” 

Throughout his time in the interview room, two cameras 

filmed Blake, producing video evidence (with sound) that he calls 

“indisputable.” It clearly shows what happened. Though 

handcuffed throughout the interview, Blake began leaning into 

officers’ faces while yelling, and swinging his elbows. After he 

stood up, Bryant and Dziendziel pushed Blake into a corner, 

leading Blake to say that “you gonna have to use your gun tonight.” 

Bryant and Dziendziel then took Blake to the ground, causing 

other officers—including Savelli—to enter the room. Savelli 

dragged Blake out of the room by his feet as Blake tried to wrestle 

free, causing him to flip onto his back. 

There is no video once Blake exits the interview room, but 

he can be heard laughing and yelling that he was “walking on his 

elbows.” He recounts being “dragged from the interview room to 

the elevator.” Blake explains that as he “reached the elevator he 

was still yelling and being verbally abusive. During his verbal 

escapade saliva may have flown from his mouth unintentionally 

striking one of the detectives.” Beyond the initial takedown, Blake 

complains of rug burns from being dragged; that Savelli used his 

foot to pin Blake’s head to the ground after the spitting incident in 

USCA11 Case: 21-13070 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 07/26/2023 Page: 4 of 9
21-13070 Opinion of the Court 5

the elevator; that he was dropped rather than lowered to the 

ground outside the building while the officers waited for a car to 

transport Blake to jail; and that Dziendziel “placed a foot to 

Appellant’s chest shoving him back into a laying down position” at 

that time. Blake does not contest that the officers ceased using 

force once his legs had been secured with hobbles. According to 

his § 1983 complaint, these actions constitute unconstitutionally 

excessive force in violation of Blake’s Fourth Amendment right to 

be free from unlawful seizures. 

After the incident, Blake reported abrasions on both elbows, 

both knees, and his face—the last of which needed a bandage. He 

was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer. A

lieutenant with the Professional Standards Section of the Orange 

County Sheriff’s Office produced an administrative review which, 

in Blake’s words, “corroborates exactly what the Appellant stated 

in his Amended Complaint.” The report concluded that the 

officers had acted reasonably and violated no internal office orders 

or Florida statutes. The district court granted the officers’

summary judgment motion, determining that the force used 

against Blake was objectively reasonable, and thus the officers were 

entitled to qualified immunity. 

II.

We review a district court’s order granting summary 

judgment de novo, drawing all inferences and reviewing the 

evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. 

Moton v. Cowart, 631 F.3d 1337, 1341 (11th Cir. 2011). 

USCA11 Case: 21-13070 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 07/26/2023 Page: 5 of 9
6 Opinion of the Court 21-13070

III.

Once a government official shows that he acted within the 

scope of his discretionary authority, the plaintiff must try to 

overcome the qualified immunity defense by showing that: (1) the 

defendant violated a constitutional right, and (2) the violation of 

the right was clearly established. Wood v. Moss, 572 U.S. 744, 757 

(2014). 

“Because interrogating suspects and witnesses is one of a law 

enforcement officer’s basic duties,” the district court concluded 

that the officers were acting within their discretionary authority. 

We agree. The test is whether an officer was “performing a 

legitimate job-related function” through “means that were within 

his power.” Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252, 

1265 (11th Cir. 2004). 

Blake’s argument is that after he invoked his right to remain 

silent, any further questions the officers asked him were outside 

their discretionary authority because they violated his Fifth 

Amendment right to remain silent. But while one “might 

reasonably believe that violating someone’s constitutional rights is 

never a legitimate job-related function or within the scope of a 

government official’s authority,” a test framed that way would be 

“no more than an untenable tautology.” Id. at 1266 (quotation 

omitted). Instead, we “look to the general nature of the 

defendant’s action, temporarily putting aside the fact that it may 

have been committed for an unconstitutional purpose.” Id. And 

even Blake concedes that in general, the officers were acting within 

USCA11 Case: 21-13070 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 07/26/2023 Page: 6 of 9
21-13070 Opinion of the Court 7

their discretionary authority by interviewing him.3 See also Vinyard

v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1346 (11th Cir. 2002) (transporting a 

suspect to jail is “clear” discretionary authority for police officers). 

Because Blake does not cite any authority for his arguments 

that the officers stepped outside their discretionary authority, we 

assess whether he has met his burden on both prongs of qualified 

immunity. He has not. 

“Not every push or shove” violates the Fourth Amendment. 

Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989) (quotation omitted). 

Police officers may use some degree of physical coercion or threat 

thereof to subdue an arrestee. Id. at 396; Rodriguez v. Farrell, 280 

F.3d 1341, 1351 (11th Cir. 2002). Whether force was excessive or 

appropriate is judged under an objectively reasonable standard 

from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene without 

the benefit of hindsight. Graham, 490 U.S. at 396–97. Factors we 

must consider include “the severity of the crime at issue,” “whether 

the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers 

or others,” whether he was “actively resisting arrest or attempting 

to evade arrest by flight,” “the need for the application of force,” 

the “extent of the injury inflicted,” and the “relationship between 

the need and amount of force used.” Mobley v. Palm Beach Cnty. 

3 Outside of excessive force in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, 

Blake’s other constitutional claims were dismissed before summary judgment. 

He does not challenge that decision in his appellate briefing. 

USCA11 Case: 21-13070 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 07/26/2023 Page: 7 of 9
8 Opinion of the Court 21-13070

Sheriff Dep’t, 783 F.3d 1347, 1353 (11th Cir. 2015) (quotations

omitted). 

These factors all support the use of force displayed by the 

officers here. Blake was being questioned concerning an armed 

robbery on a night when he had been drinking. Though he denied 

being “drunk” during the police interview, he admitted he “may 

have slightly been intoxicated” and to drinking “every day.” In his 

own words, Blake explained how he stood up to try to end the 

interview—and video and audio show him resisting the officers’ 

attempts to subdue him after that. Both his words and body 

language threatened the officers. And the abrasions that Blake

reported all flowed from the officers’ efforts to get and keep him 

on the ground, where he could be more easily secured. Cf. Smith 

v. Mattox, 127 F.3d 1416, 1417–18, 1420 (11th Cir. 1997) (denying an 

officer qualified immunity at summary judgment when he used 

excessive force by breaking an arrestee’s arm while he “docilely 

submitted” to handcuffing on the ground). 

Blake cannot point to any clearly established law to the 

contrary. We have held that an officer who punched a 

“handcuffed, non-resisting” suspect “for no apparent reason other 

than malice” used unreasonably excessive force. Hadley v. 

Gutierrez, 526 F.3d 1324, 1333–34 (11th Cir. 2008); see also Lee v. 

Ferraro, 284 F.3d 1188, 1190–91, 1199 (11th Cir. 2002) (similar). But 

while Blake was handcuffed, he can hardly be described as nonresisting—nor were the officers’ efforts to secure and remove him 

from the room equivalent to a punch. As we explained in Lee, 

USCA11 Case: 21-13070 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 07/26/2023 Page: 8 of 9
21-13070 Opinion of the Court 9

slamming a handcuffed arrestee against a car was excessive force 

when she was “completely secured, and after any danger to the 

arresting officer as well as any risk of flight had passed.” Lee, 284 

F.3d at 1199. Blake was only in this position once the officers had 

secured his legs with a hobble on the curb—which is also when 

they stopped using force. The more comparable case is Draper v. 

Reynolds. Draper—after initially behaving “politely”—became 

“hostile, belligerent, and uncooperative,” refusing to comply with 

an officer’s request while he “gestured animatedly” and 

“continuously paced” about, necessitating a taser shot before 

handcuffing. Draper v. Reynolds, 369 F.3d 1270, 1272–73, 1278 (11th 

Cir. 2004). 

Recognizing the lack of on-point caselaw, Blake argues that 

the conduct was so obviously at the core of what the Constitution 

prohibits that its unlawfulness was readily apparent to all. See 

Mercado v. City of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1160 (11th Cir. 2005). As 

he points out, that rule is “narrow.” The plaintiff must show that 

every reasonable officer would conclude that the excessive force 

used was plainly unlawful—a tall order here, especially given the 

post-incident administrative review. See Priester v. City of Riviera 

Beach, Florida, 208 F.3d 919, 926 (11th Cir. 2000). Here, the force 

was not “so far beyond the hazy border between excessive and 

acceptable force that the official had to know he was violating the 

Constitution even without caselaw on point.” Id. at 926 (quotation 

omitted and alteration adopted). We therefore AFFIRM. 

USCA11 Case: 21-13070 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 07/26/2023 Page: 9 of 9