Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the Atlantic and Maryland Reporters. Users are requested to notify the Clerk of the Court of any formal errors so that corrections may be made before the bound volumes go to press. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS
No. 16

- CV

- 841
R ONALD J ENKINS , et al. , A PPELLANT S ,
V
. D ISTRICT OF C OLUMBIA , et al

. , A PPELLEE S
. Appeal from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia ( CAB

- 5282

- 14 ) ( Hon. Thomas J. Motley , T rial Judge) ( Argued February 28, 2018 Decided January 30 , 2020) Gregory L. Lattimer for appellants. Mary L. Wilson , Senior Assistant Attorney General, with whom Karl A. Racine , Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Todd S. Kim , Solici tor General at the time the brief was filed, and Loren L. AliKhan , Deputy Solicitor General at the time the brief was filed , were on the brief, for appellees. B efore F ISHER and T HOMPSON , Associate Judges , and F ERREN , Senior Judge

.
T HOMPSON , Associate Judg e : Plaintiffs/appellants Ronald and Sharon Jenkins appeal from a n order of the Superior Court entering summary judgment in favor of defendants/appellees, the District of Columbia (the “District”) and Michael Davis, on plaintiffs’ claims brought under 42 U .S.C. § 1983 , their2

common - law claims of assault and battery , and Mr. Jenkins’s common

- law claims of false arrest and negligent supervision

. We affirm.

I. Background

The following facts are not in dispute. On the afternoon of September 2, 2013, the Jen kinses went to buy crabs at the Wharf, where Mr. Jenkins, who had been driving the Jenkinses’ vehicle, got into a verbal altercation with another driver (“the complainant”) in the parking lot. According to the Jenkinses, just before the altercation, the o ther driver had “stolen” the parking space for which Mr. Jenkins had been waiting. After the altercation, the Jenkinses, having found another parking space, went to make their purchases. Before they returned to their vehicle, a police radio run went out reporting “a traffic dispute that possibly resulted in some type of assault” in which “a knife had been pulled.” In response to the radio run, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Officer Michael Davis responded to the scene, where he spoke with other off icers who were already present and, together with the other officers, began interviewing witnesses.

At the scene, the police officers spoke with a number of individuals about what had occurred. The complainant’s nephew, a minor child with the initials3 “S.M.,” told officers that Mr. Jenkins had argued with the complainant while armed with a small, folding pocketknife that had a serrated blade. 1 The complainant initially informed a detective that Mr. Jenkins was holding a set of keys in his hand and that he (the complainant) never saw a knife, but, an hour later, through a n interpreter , the complainant told police that Mr. Jenkins had “angrily approached him

. . . [and] produced what appeared to be a small pocket knife

. . . . ” An unidentified person tol d the police that he or she saw the complainant and Mr. Jenkins arguing but did not see Mr. Jenkins with a weapon. 2 ( Officer Davis stated later, in his deposition, that a woman who was passing by told him that she saw Mr. Jenkins “pull a knife” on the com plainant, but this was not mentioned in the officer’s written report about the incident. )

While the police were still on the scene, appellants returned to their car, put their purchases in the trunk of their vehicle, and were about to drive off, when two MPD offi cers stopped them and asked Mr. Jenkins whether he had a knife and

1 S.M. testified in his deposition that the woman who was with Mr. Jenkins

— i.e., Mrs. Jenkins

— also “got out [of the car],” “w rote [the complainant’s] plate number down[,]” and “said watch what’s going to happen because . . . she had her cousin or somebody that was a cop.”

2 The vantage point and timing of the passerby are not disclosed in the record.4 whether he had pulled a knife on the complainant. Mr. Jenkins denied having done so and denied having a knife. Mrs. Jenkins corroborated his account, telling the police that her h usband “merely mentioned to the complainant that he was waiting next in line for the parking space that the complainant took” and then “walked within eyesight of the complainant to one of the fisherman boats and purchased crabs.” The officer told Mr. Jenk ins to “stay right there for a minute” while the officer went back to speak with the complainant. When the officer returned, he asked Mr. Jenkins to step out of the car, which he did. Mr. Jenkins then opened the trunk of the car to allow the police to se arch for a knife. The officers also searched the rest of the vehicle. Mrs. Jenkins stepped out of the vehicle during the vehicle search, and the police looked through her purse as well. Officers also searched in nearby trash cans and under cars in the i mmediate area , but found no knife. Officer Davis approached Mr. Jenkins and arrested him for assault with a dangerous weapon (ADW) before searching his person and taking all of his personal items out of his pocket.

At some point, an unnamed female poli ce officer approached Mrs. Jenkins and told her to get out of the car because “she was going to search [her].” 3

3 The record is unclea r as to the precise sequence of events

— e.g., as to whether the patdown search of Mrs. Jenkins took place before or after Mr. Jenkins (continued...)5
Mrs. Jenkins walked with the female officer to the police van, where she stood spread

- eagle while the female officer patted her down over her c lothing and checked her hair (which she was wearing in a braided hairstyle) for a weapon. 4

The police officers did not find a knife in the Jenkinses’ car or on the person of either Mr. Jenkins or Mrs. Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins was transported to the First
D istrict Station for booking and spent the night in jail. At an initial appearance the next day, the government declined to prosecute Mr. Jenkins, and he was released from custody

.

After the Jenkinses filed their lawsuit, the District of Columbia and Offi cer Davis moved for summary judgment on all of the Jenkinses’ claims. Reviewing the undisputed facts (and disregarding Officer Davis’s deposition testimony about an unnamed woman who claimed to have seen Mr. Jenkins with a knife), the
(...continued) was arrested, and whether the patdown search of Mrs. Jenkins and the arrest of Mr. Jenkins took place before or after off icers searched for a knife in trashcans and under cars. The precise sequence is not material for purposes of our analysis.

4 Mrs. Jenkins testified that the female officer “ went inside of my legs. She went outside of my legs. She went down my arms. I think she like checked my collar.

. . . She checked my hair.

. . . [T] hen she went under my bra, my bra line.

. . [S] he went along the sides [of my torso]. . . . She went along my arms. Went in between my legs and down the side. I didn ’ t have on a b elt and she checked the back. ”6 Superior Court concl uded that “sufficient evidence existed for Officer Davis to make a determination of probable cause to arrest Mr. Jenkins for [ADW].” The

court granted summary judgment in favor of the District and Officer Davis on all of Mr. Jenkins’s claims (making no di stinction between the § 1983 and common

law claims).

Addressing Mrs. Jenkins’s claims, the Superior Court reasoned that “the combination of proximity and marriage [was] an insufficient basis” for probable cause to search Mrs. Jenkins as “an aider and ab ettor of Mr. Jenkins’[s] alleged criminal conduct” or as an accessory after the fact. The court also reasoned that while the facts known to the officers supported a reasonable suspicion that Mrs. Jenkins might be in possession of the knife, the facts were insufficient to support a reasonable belief that Mrs. Jenkins was both armed and dangerous. Concluding, however, that there was no clearly established law regarding whether an officer may search “the accompanying passenger after a search of the arrestee driver and the vehicle itself proved fruitless” and that “the right of an individual not to be searched under the circumstances of the instant case is not clear,” the court determined that “a clearly known right was not violated when a search was performed on M r s. Jenkins” and that “qualified immunity applies.” The court7 therefore granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on Mrs. Jenkins’s claims.

II. Discussion

A. Mr. Jenkins’s claims

Summary judgment is warranted “if the movant shows that th ere is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Super. Ct. Civ. R. 56(a). Our review of an order granting
summary judgment is de novo [.]” Perkins v. District of Columbia , 146 A.3d 80, 84 (D.C . 2016).

Mr. Jenkins asserts that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment because there were “no undisputed facts indicating that Mr. Jenkins had a knife” on the date of the alleged offense and “an abundance of evidence indicating that [he] d id not.” As to the first of these p o ints, t he short answer is that the issue in this case is not whether Mr. Jenkins actually committed the offense of ADW or possessed a pocketknife on the date in question. “[T] he relevant inquiry in a false arrest defen se is not what the actual facts may be but rather what the officers could8 reasonably conclude from what they were told and what they saw on the scene. ” Enders v. District of Columbia , 4 A.3d 457, 470

- 71 (D.C. 2010) ; see also Wright v. City of Phila delphia , 409 F.3d 595, 602 (3d Cir. 2005) (“[T]he constitutional validity of the arrest does not depend on whether the suspect actually committed any crime.”). The issue in this case is whether, at the time of Mr. Jenkins’s arrest and based on the facts (undispu tedly) known to Officer Davis and the other officers at the scene , there was probable cause to believe that Mr. Jenkins had committed a criminal offense (specifically, ADW). See Bradshaw v. District of Columbia , 43 A.3d 318, 323 (D.C. 2012) (“ A police off icer may justify an arrest [and defeat a wrongful arrest claim brought under §1983 and a common

- law false arrest claim] by showing that he or she had probable cause, in the constitutional sense, to make the arrest. ”).

“Probable cause to arrest exists wh ere the facts and circumstances within the police officers’ knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man or woman of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being c ommitted.” Butler v. United States , 102 A.3d 736, 739 (D.C. 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted) ; see also District of Columbia v. Wesby , 138 S. Ct. 577, 586 (2018) (explaining that
p robable cause “requires only a probability or substantial chance of criminal9 activity, not an actual showing of such activity” (internal quotation marks omitted) ); Kaley v. United States , 571 U.S. 320, 338 (2014) (Probable cause

“ requires only the kind of fair probability on which reasonable and prudent people

. . . act. ” ) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted)

. “ When facts support a

‘ fair probability ’ that a suspect has committed a crime, probable cause to arrest exists. ” Bridewell v. Eberle , 730 F.3d 672, 675 (7 th Cir. 2013) (quoting Illinois v.
Gates , 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983)) ; see also Crowe v. County of San Diego , 593 F.3d 841, 867 (9 th Cir. 2010) (“ In determining whether there was probable cause to arrest, we look to the totality of circumstances known to the arresting officers, to determine if a prudent per son would have concluded there was a fair probability that the defendant had committed a crime. ” ) (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted) ; United States v. Denson , 775 F.3d 1214, 1217 ( 10 th Cir. 2014) (“Probable cause doesn ’ t require proof that som ething is more likely true than false. It requires only a fair probability, a standard understood to mean something more than a bare suspicion but less than a preponderance of the evidence at hand. ” ) (internal quotation marks omitted)

.

As to Mr. Jenkin s’s point about the “abundance of evidence indicating that [he] did not” display a knife during the encounter with the complainant, the short answer is that probable cause may exist even when there are “ statements and10
circumstantial indicators on both side s of the issue . . . .” Pendergrast v. United
States , 416 F.2d 776, 78 3 (D.C. Cir. 1969); see also id. at 783

– 84 (concluding that the circumstances preceding arrest “amply possessed th[e] capability” of “warrant[ing] a man of reasonable caution in the bel ief of [the suspect’s] guilt” despite the facts that the complainant who identified the suspect

- stranger as one of his assailants “had recently been drinking,” and that the suspect gave an innocent explanation for his presence on the street and “promptly d enied complicity” when confronted with the complainant’s accusation) (internal quotation marks and footnote omitted). For probable cause to exist, “ [t] he indicia of guilt need not be absolute, or even fully consistent; they may leave some room for doubt, and even for error. ” Id. at 784 (footnotes omitted). “[T]he [probable cause] standard does not require that officers correctly resolve conflicting evidence or that their determinations of credibility, were, in retrospect, accurate.” Wright , 409 F.3d at
6 03. As one district court has observed, “[t] he inference of the suspect ’ s guilt need not be the most likely scenario, or even more likely true than not, for a reasonable officer to have probable cause to arrest. ” Hyung Seok Koh v. Graf , 307 F. Supp. 3d
8 27, 848 (N.D. Ill. 2018) (citing Kaley and Wesby ).

The overarching issue before us is whether Mr. Jenkins was entitled to have a jury decide whether there was probable cause for his arrest. It is clear under our11
case law that “ where the facts that might establish probable cause are in dispute, their existence is for the determination of the jury. ” May Dep’t Stores Co. v. Devercelli , 314 A.2d 767, 771 (D.C. 1973). Here, the material facts, recited above are not in dispute; that is, there were no factual issues that precluded summary judgment. This court has said, however, in a number of cases, that “[t] he issue of probable cause in a [wrongful] arrest case is a mixed question of law and fact that the trial court should ordinarily leave to the jury. ” Bra dshaw , 43 A.3d at 324; Enders , 4 A.3d at 469 ; District of Columbia v. Murphy , 631 A.2d 34, 37 (D.C. 1993); see also, e.g. , Dempsey v. Bucknell Univ ., 834 F.3d 457, 468 (3d Cir. 2016) (“[I]t will usually be appropriate for a jury to determine whether probab le cause existed. ”); Booker v. Ward , 94 F.3d 1052, 105 8 (7 th Cir. 1996) (“[T] he issue of probable cause in a damages suit

. . . generally is a jury question [.]”)

. But we have also explained that “where the facts are undisputed or clearly established

. . . probable cause becomes a question of law for the court.” Enders , 4 A.3d at 469 ; Smith v. Tucker , 304 A.2d 303, 306 (D.C. 1973) (explaining that “[w] here the facts are in dispute, the existence of the facts [is] for the jury, but their effect, when found is a question for the determination of the court ”) (internal quotation marks omitted) ; Prieto v. May Dep ’ t Stores Co ., 216 A.2d 577, 578 (D.C. 1966) ( false arrest case stating that “ [w] here the facts are not in dispute the question of probable cause is one of law to be decided by the court. ”) ; see Stewart12
v. Sonneborn , 98 U.S. 187, 194 (1878) (“Whether the circumstances alleged to show [probable cause] are true, and existed, is a matter of fact; but whether, supposing them to be true, they amount to a proba ble cause, is a question of law.”)

.

In answering that question of law, we apply the standard that judgment as a matter of law is appropriate in a wrongful arrest case if the evidence relevant to probable cause is “ so clear that reasonable men could rea ch but one conclusion. ” Bradshaw , 43 A.3d at 324 (internal quotation marks omitted); Enders , 4 A.3d at 469 (internal quotation marks omitted) ; accord Thacker v. City of Columbus , 328 F.3d 244, 255 (6 th Cir. 2003) (“ The existence of probable cause is a jur y question, unless there is only one reasonable determination that is possible. ”); Booke r , 94 F.3d at 105 8 (“[T] he court appropriately may conclude that probable cause existed as a matter of law ‘when there is no room for a difference of opinion concerning the facts or the reasonable inferences to be drawn from them

. ’ ” ) (quoting Sheik

Abdi v. McClellan , 37 F.3d 1240, 1246 (7 th Cir. 1994)) 5 ; DeLoach v. Bevers , 922

5 In Booker , the Seventh Circuit affirmed a grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant police officers in a § 1983 unlawful arrest case, concluding that the defendant officers had probable cause to arrest Booker for m urder even though , in the related criminal proceeding, the Illinois state appellate court had found no probable cause to arrest Booker and reversed his conviction. See 94 F.3d at 1054, 1058. In Sheik

- Abdi , the Seventh Circuit affirmed a grant of summary judgment in favor of police officers in an unlawful arrest suit, concluding that where police (continued...)13 F.2d 618, 623 (10 th Cir. 1990) (citing authority that “ where the issue [of probable cause] aris es in a damage suit, it is

. . . a proper issue for the jury if there is room for a difference of opinion ”)

.

This is a case in which there may have been more than one reasonable inference available to the police officers about what actually occurred in the Wharf parking lot

. We conclude , however, on the summary judgment record before us that this is a case in which there is no room for a difference of opinion

— and a reasonable jury could reach but one conclusion

— regarding probable cause : to wit , that a prudent officer would have believed that there was at least a fair probability that Mr. Jenkins committed the crime alleged , and therefore that Officer Davis had probable cause to arrest Mr. Jenkins. In reaching this

(...continued) arrested Sheik

- Abdi after a witness told them he saw Sheik

- Abdi strike his wife, “[t]he officers’ decision to arrest Sheik

- Abdi for battery easily [fell] within t he zone of probable cause” even though his wife “denied that the striking had occurred” and “bore no contemporary markings of bodily harm [

. ] ” 37 F.3d at 1246

– 48. By contrast, in Maxwell v. City of Indianapolis , 998 F.2d 431 , 434 (7th Cir. 1993), the Seve nth Circuit reversed a grant of summary judgment for the defendants, explaining that there was “a substantial question as to whether a prudent police officer would have probable cause to believe that [plaintiff] Maxwell [who was six inches taller and almo s t 100 pounds heavier than indicated in the description of fugitive Moore in an America’s Most Wanted notice and was missing the tip of his left middle finger rather than, as indicated in the notice , the tip of the left index fi nger] was Moore.”14 conclusion, we are instructed by th e Supreme Court’s opinion in Wesby , which concretely demonstrates that “[p] robable cause is not a high bar , ” 138 S. Ct. at 586 (internal quotation marks omitted); that police are entitled to draw reasonable inferences (which need not be the only possible i nferences) when presented with conflicting evidence, id. at 588; and that a suspect’s “innocent explanations . . . do not have any automatic probable

- cau s e - vitiating effect [,] ” id. at 592.

The facts of Wesby a re that p olice officers responded to neighbo r s ’ complaint s about loud music and illegal activity in a house that had been vacant for several months and found in the house a group of late

- night partygoers. Id. at 583.
T he officers smelled marijuana and saw beer bottles and cups of liquor on the flo or , and there was a “makeshift strip club” operating in the living room and “debauchery” happening on a bare mattress that was on the floor of an upstairs bedroom

. Id. at 583. Each of the partygoers told police that someone had invited them to the house (for a bachelor’s party, some said) , and, at the officers’ request, one of the partygoers made a phone call to “Peaches,” the putative host, who, the partygoer said, had just started renting the house. Id. Peaches told the officers that she was renting t he house from the owner and that she had given the attendees permission to have a party there. Id. Upon contacting the owner, police learned that the putative host had not finalized a rental agreement for the home and15 therefore lacked the right to use th e house or authorize the party , and Peaches eventually admitted the same to the officers when they telephoned her again

. Id. at 583

– 84. The officers arrested the partygoers for unlawful entry. Id. at 584. The charges eventually were dropped, and the pa rtygoers sued for wrongful arrest under §1983 and District law. Ruling on cross

- motions for summary judgment, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed a grant of summary judgment in favor of the partygoers on the issue of liability, reasoning that “ [a] ll of the information that the police had gathered by the time of the arrest made clear that [p]laintiffs had every reason to think that [the plaintiff partygoers] had entered the house with the express consent of so meone they believed to be the lawful occupant.” Wesby v. District of Columbia , 765 F.3d 13 , 21 (D.C. Cir. 2014), rev’d , 138 S. Ct. 577 (2018) (footnote omitted). T he D.C. Circuit majority concluded that “there was no probable cause for the officers to be lieve that the [p]laintiffs entered the house knowing that they did so against the will of the owner or occupant.” Id.

The Supreme Court reversed, reasoning that “the officers made ‘an entirely reasonable inference’ that the partygoers [knew their party was not authorized and] were knowingly taking advantage of a vacant house as a venue for their late

- night party” ; that “the officers could have reasonably inferred that [in stating otherwise,16 the partygoers] were lying” and that Peaches was lying when she said she had invited them to the house ; and that the officers could even have “inferred that [the putative host] “told the partygoers . . . that she was not actually renting the house[.]” Wesby , 138 S. Ct. at 586

– 87 , 588 ( internal quotation marks omitted ). A reasonable officer could draw these inferences even though the house had some

“ signs of inhabitance

— working electricity and plumbing, blinds on the windows, toiletries in the bathroom, and food in the refrigerator [,] ” id

. at 586 , and even though the condition of the house was arguably consistent with the putative host’s being a new tenant, id

. at 588

. The Court held that “[v]i ewing the [] circumstances as a whole, a reasonable officer could conclude that there was probable cause to believe the partygo ers knew they did not have permission to be in the house

. ” Id.

at 588

. 6 To have probable cause, the Court cautioned, the officers did not have to “rule out [the partygoers’] innocent explanation” for their presence in the house. 7

6 The Cou rt recited a numb e r of “suspicious facts”: partygoers scattered or hid when they saw the uniformed officers; the floor was dirty; the house had no furniture other than a few metal chairs and a bare mattress; there were no clothes in closets or boxes or oth er moving supplies; and Peaches had lied about renting the house and seemed evasive

. Id. at 583, 586, 587, 588.

7 As the Supreme Court observed, the D.C. Circuit majority thought that the lap dances and drinking observed by the officers found when the y entered the house w ere “‘consistent with’ the partygoers’ explanation that they were having a bachelor party” and “dismissed the condition of the house as ‘entirely consistent with’ Peaches being a new tenant.” 138 S. Ct. at 588 (quoting 765 F.3d at 2 3 )

. But the Supreme Court was more impressed with the fact that none of the (continued...)17
Id. And, notably, the Supreme Court did not simply conclude that the plaintiff partygoers’ wrongful arrest claim should go to a jury; rather, notwithstanding the record facts that weighed on both sides of the probable

- cause issue and that split the D.C. Circuit panel , the Cour t concluded that the District of Columbia and its officers were entitled to summary judgment on all of the plaintiffs’ wrongful arrest claims. See 138 S. Ct. at 589. The Court stated that its analysis “would not change no matter which party is considered the moving party” (i.e., even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the partygoers). Id. at 584 n.1.

In the instant case , the police responded to a radio run reporting that “a knife had been pulled” following a traffic dispute at the Whar f. The police thereafter spoke to the complainant and his nephew S.M., who both reported that Mr. Jenkins had angrily confronted the complainant while holding in his hand a pocketknife with the serrated blade visible. Mr. Jenkins acknowledged that he had confronted the complainant to complain about the latter’s taking of the parking space, thus partially corroborating the complainant’s and S.M.’s account. Mr. Jenkins denied that he had a knife, and n o knife was found, but the officers knew that the

(...continued) part y goers “could identify the bachelor [ , ] ” a fact from which the officers could reasonably infer that the partygoers were lying

. Id. at 587.18
Jenki nses had walked away from the parking lot after the incident and thus would have had an opportunity to hide or dispose of the knife (if Mr. Jenkins had one) had they noticed the police presence (which, it appears, would have been “within [their] eyesight” [JA 147] ) before or during their walk back to the parking lot.

On the foregoing undisputed facts and the summary judgment record as a whole , and given the “not . . . high” bar that the probable

- cause standard presents, we are satisfied that any reaso nable juror would have to conclude that the police had evidence from which they could reasonably believe that there was a fair probability (even if not a preponderant likelihood) that Mr. Jenkins displayed a knife during the encounter with complainant, and that no reasonable jury could conclude that the officers lacked probable cause to arrest Mr. Jenkins for ADW

. Wesby , 138 S. Ct. at 586. In the wake of Wesby , we conclude that even if the facts here present “a very close call” as to what actually occurre d during the encounter, probable cause is “too low a bar [ , ] ” Hyung Seok Koh , 307 F. Supp. 3d at 848 , for Mr. Jenkins to succeed on his wrongful arrest claim.

“Probable cause to arrest exists if a police officer either had firsthand knowledge or received h is information [about an offense having been committed] from some person

— normally the putative victim or an eyewitness

— who it19 seems reasonable to believe is telling the truth.” Davis v. United States , 759 A.2d 665, 670 (D.C. 2000) (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, the summary judgment record contains no deposition testimony about S.M.’s demeanor or manner of dealing with the officers from which a jury could conclude that the officers could not reasonably believe that his account (which, accord ing to the police report, “remained consistent”) was truthful. 8 And, as a matter of law,

8 Cf. Smith , 304 A.2d at 306

– 7 (expl aining, in malicious prosecution action, that in the absence of evidence raising an issue about the honesty of the complainant’s belief that plaintiff was the intruder she saw leaving her tavern, “there was no fact issue respecting probable cause for the j ury to resolve

. ”). The instant case, which involved a prompt report to police and the absence of any video evidence, is quite different from Sherrod v. McHugh , 334 F. Supp. 3d 219 (D.D.C. 2018), in which the court summarized the facts that “[f]rom the ver y beginning” should have caused the police detective to “view[] skeptically” the claim that plaintiff Mrs. Sherrod had threatened the complainant with a gun after a traffic incident , and that enabled the plaintiff’s wrongful arrest claim to survive summary judgment: the complainant “ waited several hours before reporting the alleged incident ” to police ; Mrs. Sherrod was an elderly woman (“pushing 80 years old”) who “ did not fit the profile of the typical perpetrator of an assault with a deadly weapon ”; befor e arresting Mrs. Sherrod, the detective did not interview a witness who was shown on a security video that the parties agreed captured the altercation; and the security video was so pixelated that a jury was “the proper mechanism by which th[e] question [o f whether it showed Mrs. Sherrod pointing a gun] should be resolved. Id. at 232, 233, 238, 240, 24 1

. Mr. Jenkins makes much of the fact that during his deposition (and in response to leading questions), S.M. agreed to a description of the knife different from the one he gave police officers on the scene. Specifically, during his deposition, S.M. agreed with appellants’ counsel that the knife he allegedly saw was “purple” “with designs,” while one of the detectives on the scene testified that she had been told that S.M. described the knife as “black.” However, that apparent (continued...)20 although Mr. Jenkins appears to imply that S.M. was not credible simply because of his youth, the fact that S.M. was only ten years old did not foreclose a reasonable belief that he was telling the truth about seeing Mr. Jenkins with a knife. 9 We note further that Mr. Jenkins stated in his deposition that he did not overhear any of the conversation between the offic ers and S.M., and the record does not call into questi on the testimony by Officer Ronny Arce, who “assisted with talking with” S.M. in Spanish, that he “satisfied [him]self that, wherever [SM.] was [at the time of the incident], he was able to see [the knife].” 10

(...continued) inconsistency was not known to the police officers at the time of Mr. Jenkins’s arrest.

9 See , e.g. , Gerald M. v. Conneely , 858 F.2d 378, 381 (7th Cir. 1988) (rejecting claim that po lice lacked probable cause to detain two juveniles whom a ten

- year - old had accused of stealing his bicycle; reasoning that the complainant’s young age and the animosity between the children’s families, without more, did not allow a reasonable inference tha t the ten

- year - old’s story was not worthy of belief); People v. Hetrick , 604 N.E.2d 732 (N.Y. 1992) (probable cause for a search of defendant’s apartment was properly based on affidavit of nine

- year - old child who claimed to have witnessed drug activity the re); see also Scott v. United States , 953 A.2d 1082, 1093 (D.C. 2008) (upholding trial court’s finding that six

year - old was competent to testify in criminal proceeding).

10 And, of course, t he possibility that Mr. Jenkins might be able to elicit testimon y at trial that could cause a jury to question the reasonableness of the officers’ reliance on the statements from the complainant and S.M. was not enough to stave off summary judgment. “ [ S ] peculation and surmise, even when coupled with effervescent optim ism that something definite will materialize further down the line, are impuissant in the face of a properly documented summary judgment motion. ” Roche v. John Hancock Mutual Life Ins. Co. , 81 F.3d 249, 253 (1st Cir. (continued...)21

As with S.M., the summary judgment record co ntains no deposition testimony from the officer who initially interviewed the complainant about the complainant’s demeanor or other factors that would enable a jury to conclude that it was unreasonable for police to believe that the complainant was truthfu l in his later statement (made with the assistance of a translator) about Mr. Jenkins’s display of a knife. The complainant’s claim that Mr. Jenkins held a knife during the altercation was corroborated by S.M.’s statement and partially corroborated by
Mr. Jenkins’s acknowledgment of the angry encounter. Police could reasonably infer that the complainant’s initial statement that he saw Mr. Jenkins with keys and not a knife was attributable to the complainant’s limited English proficiency, and,
in assessing the complainant’s credibility, could reasonably take into account the fact , mentioned in the police report, that t he complainant “doesn’t speak fluent English [] ” (and wasn’t sure what Mr. Jenkins was saying to him during the encounter). 11 [JA 147] Further , the fact that the complainant changed his account

(...continued) 1996). “ The function of summary judgm ent is to . . . assay the parties’ proof in order to determine whether trial is actually required.” Ayala

- Gerena v. Bristol Myers

- Squibb Co. , 95 F.3d 86, 94 (1 st Cir. 1996) (internal quotation marks omitted).

11 Cf. Balasubramanrim v. Immigr ation and Nat uralization Serv ice , 143 F.3d 157, 163

– 64 (3 d Cir. 1998) (rejecting Board of Immigration Appeals’s (continued...)22 did not preclude a reasonable belief that the complainant was telling the truth during his later interview (that was conducted with the aid of a translator ). 12

Finally, the officers could reasona bly infer that Mr. Jenkins disposed of the knife after he noticed the police presence in the Wharf parking lot. 13 To be sure,

(...continued) adverse credibility determination regarding asylum seeker’s claim that he was detained and tortured in his country because Board unreasonably failed to take into account that inconsistencies in his account, including his statement that he had never been arrested in his country, likely stemmed from his limited English proficiency; noting the asylum seeker’s explanation that “[w] hatever [airport interview questi ons] I didn ’ t understand, I said no. ”).

12 See, e.g. , Sharrar v. Felsing , 128 F.3d 810, 818 (3 d Cir. 1997) (rejecting argument that police lacked probable cause to arrest the assault victim’s husband, reasoning that even if police sergeant heard victim’ s initial claim that a different man had attacked her , it was reasonable for the sergeant “to assess [the victim’s] demeanor, find her story credible, and rely on her subsequent identification of her husband as the attacker

. ”); Torchinsky v. Siwinski , 942 F.2d 257, 263 (4 th Cir. 1991) (concluding that detective acted reasonably in relying on victim’s identification of the Torchinskys as his assailants even though the victim had previously “ offered differing statements about the cause of his injuries ”)

.
13 This case is readily distinguishable from Payne v. Maher , No. 11 C 6623, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19617 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 18, 2014). There , complainants Denton and Henderson called 911 to report that after Payne brandished a pocket knife, they disarmed him an d threw him to the ground. Id. at *2

- 3. All three men were still at the scene when police arrived, and Payne was lying on the ground, semi

- conscious. Id. at *2, 7. The district court, ruling in the suit for false arrest brought by Payne (who claimed th at Denton and Henderson had accosted him ), reasoned that with Payne injured, semi

- conscious, on the ground and calling for an ambulance when police arrived, “the knife, if there actually was one, should hav e been there too.” Id . at *7. But no knife was f ound, “a state of affairs that [the (continued...)23 Mr. Jenkins consistently denied that he displayed or had a knife, but the officers were not required to believe him. 14 Mr. Jenkins emphasizes the undisputed fact that the officers never found a knife in the “immediate area ” they searched , but that fact also d id not negate probable cause . Per Wesby , we may not look at the absence of a knife in isolation, but must consider the totalit y of the circumstances

(...continued) court reasoned] refuted [Denton’s and Henderson’s] claim that [Payne] had brandished a knife, [such that] a reasonable officer could not have reasonably believed, without more, that there was probable cause to arrest or charge Payne.” Id. at *11. In the instant case, by contrast, police arrived after Mr. Jenkins had walked away from the parking lot where witnesses claimed he had displayed a knife and, unlike Denton and Henderson, Mr. Jenkins had not only an opportunity but also an incentive to dispose of any knife before police officers interviewed him.

14 See, e.g. , Nichols v. Woodward & Lothrop, Inc. , 322 A.2d 283, 286 (1974) (holding that an officer was not “obliged to believe the explanati on of a suspected shoplifte r . ”); Borgman v . Kedley , 646 F.3d 518, 524 (8th Cir. 2011) (“[An officer] need not rely on an explanation given by the suspect

. ”); Cox v. Hainey , 391 F.3d 25, 32, n.2 ( 1 st Cir. 2004) (“A reasonable police officer is not required to credit a suspect’s story

. ”); Curley v. Vill. of Suffern , 268 F.3d 65, 70 (2d Cir. 2001) (“[T]he arresting officer does not have to prove plaintiff’s version wrong before arresting him [] ” “is not required to explore and eliminate every theoretically plausible claim of innocence be fore making an arrest[,]” and “need not also believe with certainty that the arrestee will be successfully prosecuted.”) ; Marx v. Gumbinner , 905 F. 2d 1503, 1507, n.6 (11th Cir. 1990) (“[Officers a]re not required to forego arresting [a suspect] based on in itially discovered facts showing probable cause simply because [the suspect] offered a different explanation

. ”); Criss v. Kent , 867 F.2d 259, 263 (6 th Cir. 1988) (“A policeman . . . is under no obligation to give any credence to a suspect’s story . . .

. ”)

.24 of which the police officers were aware at the time Officer Davis arrested Mr. Jenkins

. See 138 S. Ct. at 588.

Mr. Jenkins argues that there was no probable cause to arrest him for ADW because t here was “no allegation

. . . that [he] threatened [the] complainant with the knife or that the complainant felt threatened by the knife or that Jenkins acted in any way in a threatening manner with the knife.” He also contends that a pocket knife was not a “dangerous weapon” as that term is used in the ADW statute because it was not a per se “prohibited weapon” as defined in D.C. Code § 22

- 4514(b) (2012 Repl.) , which proscribes the possession of a “knife with a blade longer than 3 inches, or other dangerous weapon” “with intent to use [th e
weapon ] unlawfully against another.” D.C. Code § 22

- 4514(b) (2012 Repl.)

. However, ADW occurs when a person commits simple assault with a dangerous
weapon , see Perry v. United States , 36 A.3d 799, 811 (D.C. 2011) , and one species of simple assault is i ntent

- to

- frighten

- assault , see Contreras v. United States , 121 A.3d 1271, 1274 (D.C. 2015)

. I ntent

- to

- frighten

- assault “requires proof that the defendant intended either to cause injury or to create apprehension in the victim by engaging in some threateni ng conduct

. . . . ” Parks v. United States , 627 A.2d 1, 5 (D.C. 1993)

. “[F]actual proof that the victim actually experience[d] apprehension or fear” is not “one of the essential elements” of the offense; rather, “the crucial25 inquiry is whether the assail ant acted in such a manner as would under the circumstances portend an immediate threat of danger to a person of reasonable sensibility.” Id. at 5

– 6 (brackets omitted)

. Further, s imply holding a weapon before another person in a threatening manner can co nstitute intent

- to

- frighten assault; it is not necessary for the defendant to “brandish” the weapon or ostentatiously threaten the victim with it

. See, e.g. , Parks , 627 A.2d at 6

– 7 (holding that Parks’s “act of starting his car, reaching for his pistol, a nd bringing it up [to his knee]

. . . with his gaze fixed on” a police officer who had pulled him over constituted intent

- to

- frighten assault ); Mihas v. United States , 618 A.2d 197, 199

– 200 (D.C. 1992) (upholding a conviction for intent

- to

- frighten assault where the evidence showed that Mihas, who claimed to have been using a paring knife to clean his nails immediately before the assault, came within four or five feet of the victim holding the paring knife with the blade pointing towards the ground at a for ty

- five

- degree angle while speaking “words of commanding tone”).

Here, Mr. Jenkins was alleged to have “pulled” a folding pocketknife on the complainant while arguing with him “angrily” in the parking lot and to have held the knife in his hand, blade ou t, during the confrontation, such that the knife was visible

. We have little trouble concluding that a person of reasonable sensibility witnessing that alleged conduct would perceive an immediate threat of danger

.26 Moreover, it is immaterial that the le ngth of the blade of the (putative) knife may have been under three inches. A “dangerous weapon is one which is likely to produce death or great bodily injury by the use made of it

. ” In re M.L. , 24 A.3d 63, 68 (D.C. 2011)

. Even a pocketknife with a shor t blade can be a dangerous weapon under some circumstances. See M.L. , 24 A.3d at 66, 68, 70

– 71 (upholding a conviction for possession of a prohibited weapon where the blade of the defendant’s folding pocketknife “measured two and fifteen

- sixteenths inches long” and the defendant was “carrying an open folding knife,” which the court remarked was “indicative of an intent to use it as a dangerous weapon” ) ; Mihas , 618 A.2d at 199, 201 n.1 ( up holding convictions for intent

- to

- frighten assault and possession of a prohibited weapon in a case in which, during a confrontation, the defendant possessed a paring knife with a two

- and

- three

- quarters

- inch

- long blade ).

Because we conclude that Mr. Jenkins’s arrest was supported by probable cause, we need not determine wh ether Officer Davis is protected by qualified immunity from Mr. Jenkins’s constitutional claim. See Foster v. Metro

. Airports
Comm’n , 914 F.2d 1076, 1079 (8 th Cir. 1990) (“ If probable cause was indeed present, it is not necessary to consider an immunity d efense. ”); see also Pearson v. Callahan , 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009) (“[J] udges

. . . should be permitted to exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified27 immunity analysis should be addressed first in light of the circu mstances in the particular case at hand. ”). In addition, our resolution of the probable

- cause issue also resolves Mr. Jenkins’s common

- law false arrest claim and assault and battery claims. See Scales v. District of Columbia , 973 A.2d 722, 729 (D.C. 2009 ) (stating that “if a police officer has so

- called constitutional probable cause to arrest, determined by reference to the objective standard used to determine probable cause in a criminal proceeding

. . . the arrest will be lawful and the officer accordi ngly will have a complete defense to a false arrest claim

. . . . ”) (internal quotation marks omitted)

.

We turn finally to Mr. Jenkins’s negligent supervision claim. A party alleging negligent supervision must “show that an employer knew or should have known its employee behaved in a dangerous or otherwise incompetent manner, and that the employer, armed with that actual or constructive knowledge, failed to adequately supervise the employee.” Brown v. Argenbright Sec., Inc. , 782 A.2d 752, 760 (D.C. 2001 ). As already noted, the Superior Court entered summary judgment in favor of the District on this claim without explaining its reasoning.
T he court may have assumed t hat a cause of action for negligent supervision could not lie because Officer Davis had probable cause to arrest Mr. Jenkins, and thus, his conduct was not tortious

. See Griffin v. Acacia Life Ins. Co. , 925 A.2d 564,28 576 n.32 (D.C. 2007) (per curiam) (citing Daka, Inc. v. McCrae , 839 A.2d 682, 693 (D.C. 2003) , for the proposition that “ [w] e have suggested

— but not decided

— that in an action seeking damages for negligent supervision, the conduct of the servant must be independently tortious.”). Mr. Jenkins suggests, however, that the instant case is akin to District of Columbia v. Tulin , 99 4 A.2d 788 (D.C. 2010), in which this court reasoned that the finding that an officer was
not liable for false arrest does not necessarily absolve the District from a claim of negligent supervision

. Id. at 799 (“[T] he jury ’ s verdict in favor of Officer Mc Koy with respect to the [false arrest claim] against her was not irreconcilable with its finding of liability against the District for negligent supervision. ”). In Tulin , the jury heard evidence that a very junior police officer arrested the plaintiff fol lowing

a rear - end collision after being advised by two sergeants and a detective that the plaintiff’s conduct was “an automatic lockup” despite the absence of any investigation into several “critical” questions bearing on the plaintiff’s culpability. Id. at 797, 800. Harmonizing the jury’s verdicts, we affirmed, reasoning that the jury could reasonably find that the officer “ believed in good faith that she had the legal right and obligation to make the arrest ,” while further concluding that regardless of the officer’s bona fide b elief, the superior officers at the scene

“ should have recognized that the investigation was inadequate and that the arrest29 was unlawful, but

. . . nevertheless failed to prevent [the officer] from making it. ” Id. at 800.

Tulin i s distinguishable from the instant case in several respects. First, Officer Davis did not make an unlawful arrest that was nonetheless privileged because of his good faith; rather, as we have concluded, he made a legal, valid arrest supported by probable cause. Second, there is no allegation or evidence in this case that the officers conducted an incomplete investigation. Third, there is no record evidence tending to show that Officer Davis was effectively a “puppet,” id

. , being manipulated by superiors on the scene who knew or should have known better. Thus, while Tulin shows that the District of Columbia may be liable for negligent supervision for allowing a police officer to make a false arrest based on a good

- faith but mistaken belief that the arrest was proper, the allegations and undisputed facts of this case supported the entry of summary judgment in favor of the District. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court that the District and Officer Davis were entitled to summary judgmen t on Mr. Jenkins’s claims against them.

B. Mrs. Jenkins’s claims30 Mrs. Jenkins brought a § 1983 claim against Officer Davis based on the search or frisk of her person as well as a common

- law assault and battery claim against Officer Davis and the Distric t of Columbia based on the same facts. 15 Although there is no dispute that Officer Davis was not the officer who performed the pat

- down of Mrs. Jenkins, Mrs. Jenkins contends that Officer Davis may still be held vicariously liable for the asserted violatio n of her civil rights under a “bystander liability” theory. Under the bystander liability theory, which has been adopted by several federal circuit courts of appeal, a police officer may be held liable under § 1983 for another officer’s constitutional vio lation if he or she “(1) knows that a fellow officer is violating an individual’s constitutional rights; (2) has a reasonable opportunity to prevent the harm; and (3) chooses not to act.” Randall

15 The Jenkinses’ complaint refers to the search of Mrs. Jenkins as a “full

body search,” but Mrs. Jenkins confirmed in her deposition that the search was “outside of [her] clothing.” Thus, it seems appropriate to refer to the search (for a knife) as a “frisk” or “patdown.” See Black’s Law Dictionary (“A frisk is a patdown search to discover a concealed weapon.”); see also Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1, 17 n.13 (1968) (citing an article explaining that in a patdown, “[t] he officer must feel with sensitive fingers every portion of the prisoner ’ s body. A thorough search must be made of the prisoner ’ s arms and armpits, waistline and back, the groin and area about the testicles, and entire surface of the legs down to the feet. ” ); cf. People v. King , 183 Cal. App. 4th 1281, 1286

– 287 (Cal. Ct. App. 2010) (“ King proceeded to conduct a full body search of the woman, including reaching inside her bra to ‘ massage ’ her breasts, and digitally penetrating her vagina with each of his hands. ”); Fletcher v. State , 39 S.W. 3d 274, 279 ( Tex. App. 2001) (“ Plaxco admitted that he did a pat

- down search of Parker and not a full body search

. Specifically, he admitted that he did not search Parker ’ s shoes or socks. ”).31 v. Prince George’s Cty

. , Md. , 302 F.3d 188, 203

– 04 (4th Cir . 2002) (footnote omitted) . We agree with Officer Davis that he was entitled to summary judgment in his favor on Mrs. Jenkins’s § 1983 claim because Mrs. Jenkins has not borne her burden of coming forward with evidence that Officer Davis knew that the unn amed female officer was conducting the claimed unlawful pat

- down on Mrs. Jenkins; had a reasonable opportunity to prevent the pat

- down; and made a decision not to
act. 16 Since the trial record is devoid of facts that would support holding Officer Davis lia ble as a bystander for the unnamed female officer’s acts, we conclude that Officer Davis was entitled to judgment as a matter of law on Mrs. Jenkins’s § 1983 claim. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett , 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986) (stating that “[t]he moving party i s entitled to a judgment as a matter of law [where] the nonmoving party has failed to make a sufficient showing on an essential element of her case with respect to which she has the burden of proof

. ” ) (i nternal quotation marks omitted )

.

16 The Jenkinses’ brief asserts that Officer Davis “directed th e female law enforcement officers who searched Mrs. Jenkins to do so,” but includes no record citation to support that assertion, and we see no such support in the record. Mrs. Jenkins stated in her deposition that the female officer “went to [converse wi th] the detectives”

— not Officer Davis

— when she first arrived on the scene. Moreover, the Reply Brief asserts that there was an arrest order by “Sergeant Arce” rather than a decision by Officer Davis to make the arrest, which suggests that it may have been Sergeant Arce who directed the female officer to do the patdown of Mrs. Jenkins.32 Finally, we co nsider Mrs. Jenkins’s common

- law assault and battery claim against the District (which we, like the District, understand to be based on a respondeat superior theory). We begin our analysis by recognizing that “ [a] police officer may have a qualified privi lege in an assault and battery case.” Scales , 973 A.2d at 730 . Relatedly, the District may avoid vicarious liability for what would otherwise be common

- law assault and battery by a police officer if it shows, with respect to conduct by one of its police officers alleged to constitute that tort, either that the conduct was constitutional or that the officer “(1) believed , in good faith , that his or her conduct was lawful, and (2) this belief was reasonable.” Bradshaw , 43 A.3d at 323 (brackets omitted); se e also District of Columbia v. Minor , 740 A.2d 523, 531 (D.C. 1999) (noting that “[t] his standard resembles the section 1983

. . . and qualified immunity standards

. . . (with the added clear articulation of the requirement of good faith ”)). We have also said that “[f]or a ssault and battery the inquiry is whether the officer ’ s conduct was reasonably necessary and thereby privileged. ” Kotsch v. District of Columbia , 924 A.2d 1040, 1048 (D.C. 2007); Smith , 882 A.2d at 7 88

.

Mrs. Jenkins contends that the pa tdown search was not constitutional, and that the female officer could not have reasonably believed that it was lawful, because Mrs. Jenkins’s right not to be searched was made clear by United States v.33
Di Re , 332 U.S. 581 (1948 ) (holding that a passenger’ s mere presence in a car believed to contain contraband does not give rise to probable cause to search the suspect for contraband). 17

As we explain below, we can decide this case on the basis of privilege and therefore need not definitively decide whethe r the patdown search of Mrs. Jenkins

was lawful . In short, we conclude that the officers, including the female officer who searched Mrs. Jenkins, could reasonably have believed that the search was lawful. We also see no evidence in the record to suggest that the police acted in bad faith in searching, or directing the female officer to search, Mrs. Jenkins

.

Our analysis rests largely on the fact that “s ome courts have adopted the so

called automatic companion rule, under which officers may conduct a pa tdown search of the companion of a lawfully detained suspect even though the officers lack a reasonable suspicion to believe that the companion is armed and dangerous. ”

17 Mr. Di Re was a passenger in a vehicle whose driver was suspected of selling counterfeit gasoline ration coupons. After stopping the vehicle, officers arrested Mr. Di Re even though they had no previous information implicating him. At the police station, he was thoroughly searched , and counterfeit gasoline ration coupons were found on his person. The Supreme Court held that the search was unlawful . The Court was “ no t convinced that a person, by mere presence in a suspected car, loses immunities from search of his person to which he would otherwise be entitled. ” Di Re , 332 U.S. at 587

.34 State v. Kelly , 95 A.3d 1081, 1094 n.16 (Conn. 2014). The rule was f irst articulated in United States v. Berryhill , 445 F.2d 1189 (9th Cir. 1971) , 18 in which the court concluded that “ [ a ] l l companions of the arrestee within the immediate vicinity , capable of accomplishing a harmful assault on the officer, are constitutionally subjected to t he cursory ‘ pat

- down ’ reasonably necessary to give assurance that they are unarmed .” Id. at 1193. As our court recognized in Trice v. United States , 849 A.2d 1002 (D.C. 2004), “the Berryhill rationale does not depend on the existence of a reasonable susp icion that is particular to the person frisked

. . . . ” Id. at 1007. We observed in Trice , id. , that this court “relied explicitly on Berryhill ” in deciding Mayes v. United States , 653 A.2d 856 (D.C. 1995). We reasoned in Mayes that having “found a pist ol on Mayes

. . . the officers had the right to order the remaining occupants out of the car and, at least, to frisk them.” 653 A.2d at 865; see also Lewis v. United States , 399 A.2d 559, 561 (D.C. 1979) ( noting that “ [t] he fact that his companion had jus t been arrested for unlawful possession of a firearm is a particularly compelling justification for the frisk of appellant [] ” and quoting Berryhill for the point that “[i]t is inconceivable that a peace officer effecting a lawful arrest . . . must expose h imself to a shot in the back

18 See John J. O’Shea, Note, The Automatic Companion Rule: A Bright Line Standard for the Terry Frisk of an Arrestee’s Companion , 62 Notre Dame L. Rev. 751, 751 n.10 (1987) (observing that “[n] o court that has adopted the automatic companion rule has indicated that the officer comply with any standard of suspicion with respect to the c ompanion. ”).35 from defendant’s associate because he cannot, on the spot, make the nice distinction between whether the other is a companion in crime or a social acquaintance”). 19

Applied in this case, the automatic companion rule would dic tate that having lawfully detained Mr. Jenkins upon the statements of a complainant and witness that Mr. Jenkins pulled out a knife while angrily confronting the complainant about a parking space, the police could also lawfully frisk Mr. Jenkins’s companio n, Mrs. Jenkins, to be sure that she was not armed. We need not endorse an “automatic companion” rule any further than our case law already has, to conclude that on the undisputed facts of this case there was no clear rule prohibiting police from frisking Mrs. Jenkins, and that the officers could reasonably have believed that the frisk of Mrs. Jenkins was lawful.

19 “A number of courts have approved the Berryhill approach.” Commonwealth v. Ng , 649 N.E.2d 157, 157 n. 1 (Mass. 1995) (collecting cases). But see, e.g. , United States v. McKie , 951 F.2d 399, 402 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (per curiam) (taking no po sition on the “ automatic companion ” rule ); United States v. Meadows , 885 F. Supp. 1, 2 (D.D.C. 1995) (“ It is undoubtedly a close question whether the ‘ automatic companion ’ frisk rule comports with the strictures of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence . . . .”).36
Neither Di Re nor Ybarra v. Illinois , 444 U.S. 85 (1979), 20 another case on which appellants rely, rendered such a belief objectively unreasona ble. Unlike Di
Re , the instant case is not a “mere presence in a suspected car” case. 332 U.S. at
587. 21 Mrs. Jenkins was not a mere passenger in the vehicle driven by a suspect (Mr. Jenkins). And unlike Mr. Ybarra, Mrs. Jenkins was not merely someone w ho happened to be present, along with several other people, in a public place where the police had reason to believe a certain individual possessed contraband. See 444 U.S. at 91. Rather, M r s. Jenkins was Mr. Jenkins’s wife (and, it may reasonably be
inf erred, wished to protect him); she was with him during the altercation in the parking lot (and, according to S.M., participated in the encounter by warning of follow

- up action by her relative who was a “cop”); she left the parking lot with Mr.

20 The Supreme Court held in Ybarra that “ a person ’ s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not, without more, give rise to probable cause to search that person. ” 444 U.S. at 91

.
21 In Di Re , there were three passe ngers in the vehicle targeted by the police, including an informant, the driver whom police suspected of trafficking in counterfeit gas ration coupons, and Mr. Di Re

. 332 U.S. at 583. The informant told the police officer that the driver was the source o f counterfeit coupons found in his possession, “[b]ut the officer had no such information as to Di Re.” Id. at 592. There also was no allegation that any of the three men had a weapon, but officers took all three into custody and, at the police station, “thoroughly searched” Mr. Di Re and found counterfeit coupons. Id. at 583

. An observation by the Berryhill court applies equally here: “The distinction made in Terry between a limited search for weapons and a thorough personal search of a companion of t he criminal, cogently distinguishes Di Re from the instant case.” Berryhill , 445 F.2d at 1193.37
Jenkins and returned to it with him; she was in the vehicle with Mr. Jenkins after an officer first asked Mr. Jenkins whether he had pulled a knife on the complainant and then told him to stay put in his vehicle while the officer spoke again with the complainant; and she was left alone in the vehicle when the police asked Mr. Jenkins to step out of the vehicle. These facts, all known to the police by the time the female officer searched Mrs. Jenkins, gave Mrs. Jenkins both an interest in concealing and an opportunity to conceal any knife that Mr. Jenkins had carried on his person or that was in the car. Mrs. Jenkins was much like the appellant in
Trice , whom, we said, a detective could lawfully stop “even if the detective lacked sufficient reason to suspect Trice of c riminal activity[,]” given that: A violent crime involving the use of a knife reportedly had just been committed nearby, and Castle matched the description of the criminal. . . . As he was walking with Castle, Trice appeared to be the companion of a pote ntially violent, fleeing criminal and not a mere bystander. Moreover, given the recency of the crime, it was reasonable to think that if Castle committed it, his companion Trice likely was aware of that fact and was a witness if not also an accomplice or an accessory after the fact. . . . [who] might have tried to help Castle resist arrest or retaliate against the officer.
Trice , 849 A.2d at 1008 (holding that “[u]nder these circumstances, our cases make clear that it was prudent, and hence constitutiona lly permissible, for Detective38 Espinosa to freeze the situation briefly by forcibly detaining Trice along with Castle until help arrived

. ”) (internal quotation marks omitted). 22

Further, the following circumstances particular to this case enhanced the

rea sonableness of the police conduct. Mrs. Jenkins was wearing clothing of a type ( e.g ., a collared shirt) and was wearing her hair in a style that (it appears from the record) might have permitted the concealment of a small pocket knife. Mr. Jenkins would have had an opportunity to transfer the knife to his wife before his arrest, and Mrs. Jenkins might have picked up the knife in the car and secured it on her person while the couple remained in their vehicle after first speaking with the officer, or while she remained in the car as the police questioned her husband. 23 The officers could reasonably believe that the frisk of Mrs. Jenkins “was reasonably necessary and thereby privileged.” Kotsch , 924 A.2d at 1048.

The foregoing does not end our analysis , bec ause “the test for qualified privilege in an assault and battery suit is both subjective and objective: the officer

22 “ As it happened, Castle was released; evidently he was not the man being sought for the stabbing at Hadley Hospital. ” Id. at 1005 n.2.

23 And i f the office rs’ search of the immediate area, including in trashcans and under cars, preceded their frisk of Mrs. Jenkins, that fruitless search increased the likelihood that the knife (if there was one) was on Mrs. Jenkins’s person

.39 must subjectively believe” that his or her conduct was lawful. Scales , 973 A.2d at 730. This court has “not resolved the question of burd en of proof as to . . . privilege in an assault and battery claim

. . . . ” Smith , 882 A.2d at 791; see also
Evans

- Reid v. District of Columbia , 930 A.2d 930, 938 (D.C. 2007) (“assum[ing], without deciding, that where a plaintiff establishes a prima facie case of assault and battery and the officer invokes the qualified privilege as an affirmative defense, the officer bears the burdens of production and persuasion”). We have reasoned, however, that if a plaintiff admittedly did not hear the conversation t hat precipitated an officer’s challenged conduct, and thus does not know what motivated it, the plaintiff cannot avoid summary judgment by asserting that the officer’s objectively reasonable conduct was undertaken in bad faith. See District of Columbia v. Murphy , 631 A.2d 34, 38 (D.C. 1993) (“If Mary Young or the officers had testified that she told them she had asked Murphy to leave and he had refused, this would be a different case. Such testimony would have been uncontroverted

— because Murphy testified that he had not heard the conversation between Mary Young and the police officers

— and thus would have supplied undisputed evidence requiring a conclusion, as a matter of law, that the officers had a reasonable, good faith belief in the lawfulness of the arrest.”); see also Bradshaw , 43 A.3d at 32 7 (“If [Officer Jones’s] testimony regarding what the bouncer told him about Bradshaw’s fighting had been definitive and consistent, the40 testimony

— which described a conversation about which Bradshaw claims no
p ersonal knowledge

— could have supplied a basis for summary judgment [on the issue of the officer’s good faith in arresting Bradshaw]. . . . In that circumstance, Bradshaw could have defeated summary judgment only if she had affirmative evidence to the co ntrary . . . .”).

Here, Mrs. Jenkins acknowledged in her deposition that she did not hear what was said when the female officer arrived on the scene and spoke to the detectives before telling Mrs. Jenkins that she was going to search her. Thus, Mrs.
Jen kins does not know the content of any instructions or rationale the officers expressed. “In that circumstance, [Mrs. Jenkins was entitled to] defeat[] summary judgment only if she had affirmative evidence” of the officers’ bad faith. Bradshaw , 43 A.3d at 32 7 . The Jenkinses did not come forward with any such evidence; the summary judgment record is devoid of evidence that the police personnel who frisked Mrs. Jenkins or directed that she be frisked acted in bad faith. Cf. Evans

- Reid , 930 A.2d at 941 (sus taining entry of judgment as a matter of law for the District on assault and battery claim based on police shooting because “the evidence that was admitted

– even when viewed favorably to appellant

– did not suffice for a jury to find for her [on the issue of bad faith] without engaging in speculation

. ”) (footnote omitted)

. Indeed, the Jenkinses do not even assert that the41 officers acted in bad faith. For these and all the foregoing reasons, we conclude that whether or not the frisk of Mrs. Jenkins was le gal , the conduct of the officer who frisked Mrs. Jenkins was protected by privilege and the District was entitled to summary judgment on Mrs. Jenkins’s assault and battery claim.

***

The Superior Court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor o f the District and Officer Davis on the Jenkinses’ claims. Wherefore, the judgment of the Superior Court is

Affirmed.