United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit 

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No. 22-1763

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Estate of De’Angelo Brown, Deceased through Bryce Brewer, Special 

Administrator

 Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

E.C. West, Chief, West Memphis Police Department; Prince Bohanon, Member, 

West Memphis Police Department; Michael Clark, Member, West Memphis Police 

Department; John Buford, Member, West Memphis Police Department; Matthew 

McKee, Member, West Memphis Police Department; Daniel Magill, Member, 

West Memphis Police Department; James Presley, III, Member, West Memphis 

Police Department

 Defendants - Appellees

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Northern

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Submitted: February 21, 2023

Filed: August 10, 2023

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Before SMITH, Chief Judge, STRAS and KOBES, Circuit Judges. 

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KOBES, Circuit Judge.

De’Angelo Brown was a passenger in a car that led West Memphis Police 

Department (WMPD) officers on a dangerous chase. He was shot and killed when
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officers tried to stop the car, and his estate sued them under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for 

excessive force and state-created danger. The district court1 granted summary 

judgment to the officers, and we affirm. 

I. 

An officer tried to stop a car for having improperly lit high beams. Instead of 

pulling over, the driver led police on a lengthy and dangerous high-speed chase. 

Police tried to end the pursuit using stop sticks and multiple vehicle maneuvers but

were unsuccessful. Finally, after hitting a police car head on, the car stopped.

Brown sat in the passenger seat with his hands up. As an officer pulled the 

passenger door handle, the driver put the car in reverse. The officer’s hand got stuck 

in the door, causing him to get dragged alongside the car. The driver then backed

into a police car and rolled forward over the officer’s legs. The officer on the ground 

started shooting at the driver, and as the car moved toward other officers, they also

started to shoot. Ultimately, 14 bullets hit the driver and 3 hit Brown, killing both.

Brown’s estate sued WMPD officers and the chief of police under § 1983 and 

the Arkansas Civil Rights Act, alleging excessive force and state-created danger, 

among other things. The district court granted summary judgment to the officers, 

concluding that Brown wasn’t seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment 

and that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on the state-created danger

claim. Brown’s estate appeals. 

II. 

We review the grant of summary judgment de novo. Rynders v. Williams, 650 

F.3d 1188, 1194 (8th Cir. 2011). “Summary judgment is proper if, after viewing the 

1

The Honorable Kristine G. Baker, United States District Judge for the Eastern 

District of Arkansas. 
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evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the 

nonmovant, no genuine issues of material fact exist and the movant is entitled to 

judgment as a matter of law.” Rau v. Roberts, 640 F.3d 324, 327 (8th Cir. 2011)

(citation omitted). 

A.

We first turn to the estate’s excessive force claim. To determine whether the 

officers used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, we “ask 

whether the amount of force used was objectively reasonable under the particular 

circumstances.”2

 Banks v. Hawkins, 999 F.3d 521, 525 (8th Cir. 2021) (cleaned up). 

We analyze reasonableness “from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the 

scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight,” and “balanc[e] . . . the nature 

and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against 

the countervailing governmental interests at stake.” Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 

765, 774−75 (2014) (citations omitted). 

Here, it is undisputed that Brown had his hands up. And we have no doubt 

that shooting into the car posed a substantial risk of serious bodily harm to him. But 

the driver had just led police on a reckless, high-speed chase, which involved 

swerving into oncoming traffic, hitting a police car, and resisting efforts to stop the 

car by other means. By the time officers started shooting, the car had run over one

officer’s legs and was headed toward others. All things considered, officers acted 

reasonably in using deadly force, and the district court didn’t err in granting 

summary judgment. See id. at 776−77 (holding that officers acted reasonably where 

they shot the plaintiff at the end of a high-speed chase and where the plaintiff evaded 

and posed “a grave public safety risk” at the time of the shooting). 

2

We assume without deciding that Brown was seized within the meaning of 

the Fourth Amendment.
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B. 

We turn now to the estate’s state-created danger claim. “We have held the 

Due Process Clause imposes a duty on state actors to protect or care for citizens . . . 

when the state affirmatively places a particular individual in a position of danger the 

individual would not otherwise have faced.” Gregory v. City of Rogers, 974 F.2d 

1006, 1010 (8th Cir. 1992). 

Brown suggests that officers violated his due process rights by failing to 

protect him from the danger they created. But as the district court explained, the 

“defendant officers did not place Mr. Brown in a position of danger that he would 

not otherwise have faced.” It was the driver who put Brown in extreme danger, not 

the police officers. See generally Plumhoff, 572 U.S. at 778 (noting that a driver put 

a passenger “in danger by fleeing and refusing to end the chase”). For this reason, 

Brown’s state-created danger claim fails. 

III. 

We affirm the judgment of the district court. 

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