Opinion ID: 797389
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Were the rights clearly established?

Text: 40 A right is clearly established for qualified immunity purposes if it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151; see also Smoak, 460 F.3d at 778; Feathers, 319 F.3d at 848. 2 This inquiry must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201, 121 S.Ct. 2151. If no reasonably competent officer would have taken the same action, then qualified immunity should be denied; however, if officers of reasonable competence could disagree on [the legality of the action], immunity should be recognized. Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986). As the Supreme Court has explained, [t]he concern of the immunity inquiry is to acknowledge that reasonable mistakes can be made as to the legal constraints on particular police conduct. Saucier, 533 U.S. at 205, 121 S.Ct. 2151. Qualified immunity leaves government authorities ample room for mistaken judgments. Scott v. Clay County, 205 F.3d 867, 873 n. 9 (6th Cir.2000) (citations omitted). The doctrine protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law. Malley, 475 U.S. at 341, 106 S.Ct. 1092. 41 In a situation such as the present one where the constitutional violations are based on the collective knowledge of a number of police officers, it is important to recognize that an individual officer is still entitled to qualified immunity if an objectively reasonable officer in the same position could have reasonably believed that he or she was acting lawfully. See, e.g., Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202, 121 S.Ct. 2151. More specifically, where individual police officers, acting in good faith and in reliance on the reports of other officers, have a sufficient factual basis for believing that they are in compliance with the law, qualified immunity is warranted, notwithstanding the fact that an action may be illegal when viewed under the totality of the circumstances. See Feathers, 319 F.3d at 851; Smoak, 460 F.3d at 782. 42 This Court has confronted on several occasions the question of when, for qualified immunity purposes, an officer is entitled to rely on communications from other officers. In Feathers, for example, police officers entered the wrong building and seized a suspect based on a dispatcher's inaccurate report. The court in Feathers ruled that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because the information they had at the time gave the individual defendants . . . a sufficient factual basis for thinking that they were acting consistently with Terry.  319 F.3d at 851 (emphasis added). Similarly, in Smoak, radio dispatches had instructed the defendant police officers to be on the lookout for suspects involved in a possible robbery. The Smoak family vehicle was improperly identified as suspicious after a citizen driver reported that it was traveling at a high speed and that money was flying out of the vehicle — it turned out that James Smoak had left his wallet on the roof after purchasing gasoline. During the stop, the officers pointed their guns at the family members' heads, shot and killed their dog, and caused injury to James Smoak's knee. Smoak, 460 F.3d at 773-75. This court concluded that the stop was constitutional, but that the seizure was an unconstitutional arrest without probable cause. Nonetheless, the court in Smoak found that the officers had a good-faith defense relating to the felony stop and the use of guns: This conduct, . . . which in hindsight must be viewed as an unreasonable seizure under the totality of the circumstances, was not so clear to the [law enforcement officers] on the scene as to deny them qualified immunity on this basis. Id. at 782. 3 43 Accordingly, in a case such as this where one officer's claim to qualified immunity from the consequences of a constitutional violation rests on his asserted good faith reliance on the report of other officers, we consider: (1) what information was clear or should have been clear to the individual officer at the time of the incident; and (2) what information that officer was reasonably entitled to rely on in deciding how to act, based on an objective reading of the information. See id.; see also United States v. Hensley, 469 U.S. 221, 232-33, 105 S.Ct. 675, 83 L.Ed.2d 604 (1985). 44
45
46 To reiterate: At approximately 10:34 p.m., Officers Mabry and George received information from Officer Wheeler, who was in a helicopter, that a PT Cruiser with a gun on board was headed in their direction and was wanted in connection with an investigation into a threat to use that gun. They observed that the helicopter was following the PT Cruiser. It was dark outside. When they saw what they thought was the PT Cruiser, Mabry and George walked into the street and stopped a line of traffic. The PT Cruiser was at the end of the line. They drew their guns and approached it on foot. They both testified that when they made the stop, they were relying on the immediate radio communications alerting them that a PT Cruiser was nearby with a gun and gunman aboard and identifying the specific (albeit blue) PT Cruiser that was probably it. 47 In retrospect, it is clear that during the half hour that elapsed between the 911 call and the stop of Humphrey, the officers searching for the suspect at and in the vicinity of the Graham house and the dispatcher all broadcast conflicting information. There was confusion over whether Dunson was on foot or in his car; whether, if he was on foot, he had thrown the gun into the car before taking off; whether the PT Cruiser, once it left Graham's house, was headed eastbound or westbound; what its license number was; and whether the driver of the car was Dunson or his friend, Lucas. However, as the Supreme Court explained in Hensley, effective law enforcement cannot be conducted unless police officers can act on directions and information transmitted by one officer to another and that officers, who must often act swiftly, cannot be expected to cross-examine their fellow officers about the foundation for the transmitted information. 469 U.S. at 231, 105 S.Ct. 675 (quotation omitted). 48 The dissent concludes that Officers Mabry and George should have sought further confirmation that this was the PT Cruiser Wheeler wanted stopped, and before stopping it, should have checked the license tag or requested a physical description of the suspect. We find that Officer Wheeler's detailed (albeit erroneous) identification of the car was sufficient for Mabry and George to decide quickly to stop the reportedly gun-bearing PT Cruiser pointed out from the helicopter. A reasonable officer could have concluded that a suspect driving away from the scene of a crime where a gun was brandished creates a circumstance that is as exigent as a police confrontation with an armed robbery suspect. Compare Smoak, 460 F.3d at 774-75. We also note that during the stop, the officers covering in other cruisers checked to see if the tag number of Humphrey's car corresponded to the tag number originally reported, to be told only that it was not a good number, without reporting what the original number was. 49 Similarly, it is possible to fault Officers Mabry and George for seizing a bright blue PT Cruiser, despite Officer Wheeler's contemporaneous report that the PT Cruiser in question was dark grey. However, this is all hindsight. The reasonableness of the conduct of the officers is enhanced by Officer Wheeler's specific identification of Humphrey's PT Cruiser as probably it, and their belief that the driver was armed. Under these circumstances, a reasonable officer could have made the same mistake, and as a result, could have reasonably believed the stop was lawful. Accordingly, Officers Mabry and George are entitled to qualified immunity on the unlawful seizure claim. 50
51 The use of force during a Terry stop must be reasonable based upon the facts known to the officers [on the scene] at the time of the stop. Houston, 174 F.3d at 815. Furthermore, this court has specifically approved the use of guns and handcuffs during an investigatory stop. Id. ; see also Smoak, 460 F.3d at 782. In conducting the stop, Officers Mabry and George forcibly removed Humphrey from his vehicle at gunpoint, conducted a pat-down, and partially handcuffed him. The report that this was a 33 run entitled these officers to believe reasonably that the suspect for whom they were looking in the PT Cruiser was armed. When Humphrey did not resist, the officers holstered their guns. Humphrey concedes that the officers did not harm him, and in fact were careful not to aggravate a pre-existing injury to his thumb. 52 Our dissenting colleague suggests that the circumstances here were not exigent, and that the officers should have waited to approach the vehicle and forcibly secure the driver until they obtained more information to help them identify the correct suspect. However, they had authoritative information that the suspect whom they believed they were apprehending was armed with a gun with which he had made a threat — a time-sensitive situation requiring a prompt reaction. It was not necessarily clear to them that they had the wrong man at the moment they made the decision to use force. 53 Officers Mabry and George recalled, from bits and pieces of the initial radio reports describing the incident while they were on patrol in another precinct, that at the time they made the stop, the suspect for whom they were looking was a black male. However, Officers Mabry and George testified that in this fast-moving night-time scenario, they were focused on the information most immediately transmitted to them — that there was a dangerous man with a gun in the PT Cruiser which they had stopped. Officers on foot confronting a suspect seated behind the wheel of a car could reasonably believe that they faced serious peril to life and limb. They could reasonably believe that it was lawful for them, as speedily as possible, to point their guns at that suspect, quickly and forcibly remove him from his car, and restrain him thereafter, without stopping the process to obtain a fuller description. In any event, as soon as they obtained a detailed physical description of the suspect and realized that Humphrey did not match that description, they let him go. 54 Officers Mabry and George could have reasonably believed that they were acting lawfully under the circumstances. Accordingly, Officers Mabry and George are entitled to qualified immunity on the excessive force claim. 55
56 Officer Wheeler's entitlement to qualified immunity depends on a different set of considerations. For him, the issue is whether an officer in his situation could have reasonably believed that directing officers on the ground to stop Humphrey's PT cruiser was lawful. 4 57 Officer Wheeler began his helicopter shift just before 10 p.m.; he did not hear the initial reports that described the suspect and indicated that he had left the site of the 911 call on foot. What Officer Wheeler did know was that he was looking for a dark-grey PT Cruiser anywhere from Frebis/Parsons, all the way to Livingston and Parsons on a 33-run. He also heard the reports that the suspect's friend was driving the PT Cruiser and that the gun was in the car. Officer Wheeler testified that from his vantage point, Humphrey's blue PT Cruiser looked dark-grey. Finally, Officer Wheeler spotted Humphrey's PT cruiser close to the scene of the original crime and in the limited geographic area where he had just been instructed to look. 58 In retrospect, Officer Wheeler's identification of Humphrey's PT cruiser as probably it was perhaps unreasonable. He was acting on fairly limited information in concluding, from 300-500 feet in the air, that Humphrey's PT Cruiser was the vehicle the police were looking for. However, given that Officer Wheeler came on duty while the search for the suspect was already in progress, he was not plainly incompetent 5 in failing to elicit all of the details of the incident that were reported before his shift, or in failing to recognize immediately that the dark-colored PT Cruiser he spied from the helicopter could not have been the grey PT Cruiser for which the police were looking, especially given the inconsistencies in the reports he was receiving from officers on the ground. Officer Wheeler's mistakes were unfortunate, and they fall short of the ideal standards of diligence expected of officers searching at night by helicopter for suspects in vehicles in a large city. His lack of diligence directly resulted in the violation of Humphrey's rights. However, his mistakes were not so egregious that we would characterize them as plain incompetence or mistakes no reasonable officer would make in the circumstances. Accordingly, we conclude that Officer Wheeler is also entitled to qualified immunity for his actions in directing the stop of Humphrey's PT Cruiser.