Opinion ID: 1224431
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Officers' Pointing their Guns at Sullivan

Text: There were two instances of force applied as to Sullivan which must be addressed and analyzed. First is the officers' act of training their firearms on Sullivan. [8] As stated in Tekle, 511 F.3d at 845, [w]e have held that the pointing of a gun at someone may constitute excessive force, even if it does not cause physical injury. See Robinson v. Solano County, 278 F.3d 1007, 1014-15 (9th Cir. 2002) (en banc). Second is the actual shooting of the firearms by Officers Alvis and Keesor. Turning to the facts and circumstances confronting the officers, while encountering the bloody T-shirt would not by itself constitute probable cause to believe that a crime had been committed, it would certainly give rise to a reasonable belief that caution (because of possible danger to the officers) was appropriate. [9] Another factor was the officers' being denied immediate access to the first bedroom following their identifying themselves as police officers and requests for the door to be opened. Thereafter, the officers found Martin in the bedroom who cooperated with their commands. From the sounds of movement coming from the attic at that point, it was rational to conclude that there was another individual who was attempting to flee from the officers and who was in the attic or on the roof. Before climbing into the attic, a knife was found on Martin's person. Upon entering the attic, the officers found it to be extremely dark, illuminated only by the flashlights which they carried in one hand, and filled with rafters and other obstructions which hampered both movement and vision. When the person in the attic did not respond to their presence or announcements and remained hidden, in light of all of the referenced factors, it was objectively reasonable for the officers to have drawn their guns because of the possibility of danger to the officers in that situation. [10] Thereafter, the officers located Sullivan who was in a position in between sitting and lying down on his back between two wooden beams on the floor, and partly covered by the insulation material. Despite the officers' repeated demands for him to show them his hands, he never raised his right hand which was underneath the insulation and, periodically, he would move his left hand in and out of the insulation material. Consequently, at no time during the entire incident could the officers have determined whether or not Sullivan was armed with a gun, knife or other weapon. Sullivan was a 25 year old able-bodied, five foot nine inch, 208 pound man. Thus, pointing their weapons at him cannot be found to have been objectively unreasonable. The facts of this case are clearly distinguishable from Ninth Circuit precedent finding excessive force from the mere act of aiming weapons at an individual. [11] Here, Sullivan was not cooperative, was indicating that he would not be taken into custody, and was possibly armed with a weapon, plus all of the participants were in a dark, confined and obstructed location. In light of the above facts, the defendant officers are entitled to qualified immunity as to this portion of plaintiffs' unreasonable force claim.