[DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________ No. 16

- 10406 Non

- Argument Calendar

________________________ D.C. Docket No. 3:14

- cv - 00579

- BJD

- PDB MARVIN L. JOHNSON, Plaintiff

- Appellant,

versus KEITH A. DIXON, JR., DAVID A. STEVENS, MICHAEL BROWN

- MASSALINE, Individually, JOHN RUTHERFORD K/N/A MIKE WILLIAMS , in his of ficial capacity as Sheriff of the City of Jacksonville, Defendants

- Appellees.

________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle Distr ict of Florida

________________________ ( November 29, 2016 ) Before WILSON, MARTIN , and ROSENBAUM , Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:

Case: 16-10406 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 1 of 82 Marvin L. Johnson, an inmate with bipolar disorder, was beaten by a corrections officer while two other officers watched. He appeals the district
court ’s grant of summary judgment on his claim that the sheriff should be liable for the actions of the officer based on a failure to properly train those officers. After careful review we conclude that Johnson failed to allege sufficient facts that the sheriff should have known his officers’ training was inadequate

. W e therefore affirm.
I. O n July 21, 2012, Johnson was in the custody of the Jacksonville She riff’s Office

. He was being held in the Duval County Pre

- Trial Detention Facility’s (“PDF”) dorm fo r inmates who are mentally ill , due to his bipolar disorder. Officers Ke i th Dixon, David Stevens, and Michael Brown

- Massal ine were on duty that evening. Johnson repeatedly asked Officer Dixon for his medication, and was told that the paperwork had not ye t arrived. Both Dixon and Johnson used profanity during their conversation. Johnson says Dixon threatened to beat him if he did not shut up. Eventually Johnson realized that Dixon would not help him so Johnson just sat down in his cell. About thirty minutes later Dixon came to Johnson’s cell with Officers Stevens and Brow n - Massaline. The officers say they entered Johnson’s cell in order to calm him down. Dixon describes Johnson as agitated and yelling

Case: 16-10406 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 2 of 83 expletives at the officers. Johnson says he ask ed the other o fficers if they were going to let Dixon beat him . At some point, Officer Dixon did beg i n to beat Johnson. Johnson details that Dixon, with a metal object in his hand, hit him twenty

- five times on his back and five times on his head. Office r Stevens observed “no perceived threat” when Officer Dixon hit Johnson. Stevens an d Brown

Massaline stood behind Dixon while he beat Johnson. The officers left Johnson’s cell but the district court found that Officer Dixon returned minutes later “ with a

‘ stun gun ’ and put it on Johnson. ” Johnson’s requests for medical attention were ignored. Johnson was bruise d on his back, with a “knot” on his head and blood in his hair. The o fficers’ supervisor, Lieutenant Toni Broekema, learned of the incident tha t night and immediately reported it to the Integrity/Special Investigations Unit. That unit issued Dixon a criminal notice for misdemeanor battery. Internal Affairs also investigated the incident and charge d all three officers with violating the General Orders for the Sheriff’s office

. Dixon resigned from his position and was required to relinquish his law enforcement certificate

. Johnson sued the officers in their individual capacities and the S heriff in his official capacity. A jury found all three officers guilty of committing acts that violated Johnson’s right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Before the trial , the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the S heriff , finding

Case: 16-10406 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 3 of 84 that Johnson “failed to establish a fact issue as to the § 1983 municipal liability claim based upon policy or custom.” Johnson now appeals this grant of summary judgment to the Sheriff

. In h is appeal Johnson seeks to proceed against the S heriff based on his purported failure to adequately train the correctional officers in the proper trea tment of mentally ill inmates.
II. We review de novo the district c ourt’s grant of summary judgment , draw ing

re asonable inferences and construing the evidence in f avor of the nonmoving party. Carter v. City of Melbourne , 731 F.3d 1161, 1166 (11th Cir. 2013) (per curiam)

.

“ Summary judgment is appropriate when the record evidence shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitl ed to judgment as a matter of law.” Id. (quotation omitted). A plaintiff seeking to hold a municipal actor liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 must prove that official municipal policy was responsible for the action that caused his injury. Connick v. Thompson , 563 U.S . 51, 60

– 61 , 131 S. Ct. 1350, 1359 (2011)

. “ In limited ci rcumstances, a local government’ s decision not to train certain employees about their legal d uty to avoid violating citizens’ rights may rise to the level of an official government policy for purposes of § 1983. ” Id. at 61, 131 S. Ct. at 1359. However, “[a] municipality’ s culpability for a deprivation of rights is at its most tenuous where a claim turns on a failure to train. ” Id. “[A]

Case: 16-10406 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 4 of 85 municipality ’ s failure to train its employees in a r elevant respect must amount to deliberate indifference to the r ights of persons with whom the untraine d employees come into contact. ” Id

. (alteration adopted and quotation omitted). “ Deliber ate indifference is a stringent standard of fault, requiring proof that a municipal actor disregarded a known or obvious consequence of his action.” Id. , 131 S. Ct. at 1360 (alteration adopted and quotation omitted). To establish deliberate indifference for a claim of inadequate training, a plaintiff must show that the municipal “policymakers are on actual or constructive notice that a particular omission in their training causes [municipal] employees to violate citizens’ constitutional rights.” Id. To show this notice , a plaintiff ordinarily must demonstrate “ [ a ] pattern of similar constitutional violat ions by untrained employees

. ” Id. at 62, 131
S. Ct. at 1360 ; accord Weiland v. Palm Beach Cty. Sheriff’ s Office , 792 F.3d 1313, 1328 (11th Cir. 2015)

. Johnson attempts to meet his burden by pointing out the testimony of all three officers that they had little or no training on how to deal with mentally ill inmates. He also point s out that Dixon has been accused of using excessive force in other instanc es . Johnson argue s that the Sheriff was aware of allegations of assaults by officers on inmates before the assault on him in July 2012. In support , he points to a 2014 article about inmates with mental ill ness at the PDF ; the PDF’s loss of National Commi ssion on Correctional Health Care accreditation from

Case: 16-10406 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 5 of 86 November 2011 to March 20 12; and 101 complaints of excessive force at the PDF from 2009 until the time of his assault. S even of those excessive force complaints were sustained (including Johnson’s compl aint against Dixon). Johnson also highlights that from 2011 until his assault there were thirty

- eight reported responses of force in the PDF mental health dorm, with many reports demonstrat ing that the use of force was initiated as a first measure after verbal commands were not followed. This record also establishes, h owever, that all of the officers completed and passed a forty

- hour Crisis Intervention Training course about interacting with inmates with mental health issues

. The training course included visiting the mental health dorms, speaking with mental health patients, and experiencing what it is like to hear voices

. All three officers testified that they had training with regard to
pe ople with mental health issues , although no t specific to inmates

. This evidence does not establish a genuine dispute about whether the Sheriff was deliberately indifferent to inadequate training of officers on how to deal with inmates who are mental ly ill . Johnson does not allege a pattern of constitutional violations against inmates with mental health issues. See Connick , 563 U.S. at 62,
131 S. Ct. at 1360. Instead he cites exonerated complaints against Dixon as well as
seven susta ined excessive force complaints from a period of over three years at the
PDF , and not limited to inmates with mental illness . He also cites statistics about

Case: 16-10406 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 6 of 87 the use of force at the mental health dorm , but does so without any demonstration that force was w rongly employed

. See Brooks v. Scheib , 813 F.2d 1191, 1193 (11th Cir. 1987) (holding the officials were not aware of past misconduct where plaintiff “ never demonstrated that past complaints of police misconduct had any merit ”)

. Neither does Johnson explai n how the Sheriff should have known these particular officers did not re call their training. While th e ir lack of memory may reflect upon the quality of the training, deficiencies in the training of particular officers do not put the Sheriff on notice of t he need for better training. See City of Canton v. Harris , 489 U.S. 378 , 390

– 91, 109 S. Ct. 1197, 1206 (1989) (“ That a particular officer may be unsatisfactorily trained will not alone suffice to fasten liabili ty on the city, for the officer’ s shortcoming s may have resulted from factors other than a faulty training program. It may be, for example, that an otherwise sound program has occasionally been negligently administered. ” (citation omitted)); Lewis v. City of W. Palm Beach , 561 F.3d 1288, 1293 (11th Cir. 2009) ( “[T] he focus must be on the adequacy of the training programs in relation to the tasks the particular officers must perform, and not merely on the training deficiencies for a particular officer. ” (quotation omitted) )

. On this record, lacking

o ther indications of training deficiencies or other incidents involving inmates with mental illness , Johnson has not me t his burden. See Mercado v. City of Orlando ,

Case: 16-10406 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 7 of 88 407 F.3d 1152, 1162 (11th Cir. 2005) (“[A] plaintiff [can] not establish a [municipal liabil ity] claim when he [can] not point to any other incidents involving similar facts. ”)

. Johnson’s remaining evidence is even less on point. The 2014 article reports only about the numbers of inmates with mental illness and not about constitutional violations or the training of correctional officers. And the accreditation report that listed unmet standards, which were resolved before Johnson’s assault , found t hat “[c]orrectional staff have the required training in health

- related topics.” Neither put the Sheriff on notice of inadequate training. Thus, Johnson has not established

a genuine dispute of material fact and summary judgment is appropriate.
AFFIRMED Case: 16-10406 Date Filed: 11/29/2016 Page: 8 of 8