Opinion ID: 738064
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Seizure of the Car

Text: 6 The mere fact that the City of Inglewood police department has a procedure for dividing its calls among duty officers, called officer-assist calls, does not constitute a municipal policy governing the specific method of property seizure alleged in the complaint to be unconstitutional. As Officer Wallace testified in his deposition: 7 Any call that comes in where an officer is dispatched to, it would, in essence, be an assist call. Whether it's just to go over and see if by chance you can unlock a lady's car door or if it's to have intervention in a family disturbance. It's still an assist call. Every call, in essence, can be an assist call. 8 Such a general statement regarding police procedure is insufficient to support a finding that a particular municipal policy caused the allegedly unconstitutional seizure of the car. 9 Wade's attempt to demonstrate a verbal practice or custom of seizing property by committing constitutional violations also fails. Wade points to the following excerpt from Officer Wallace's deposition: 10 Q: You've had other officer assistance calls of this type prior to this? 11 A: Oh, yes. Many. 12 Q: Was there any rule of thumb that you would use, a policy that you had, verbal policy that you'd ever been instructed on how to carry out such an inquiry? [In] other words, had you ever had a situation with the car being requested to be removed? 13 A: Yes. Car, furniture, baby. It [runs] a gamut. Anything and everything. I've encountered most all of it. 14 Q: Was there any kind of policy with the Police Department how that's supposed to be handled? 15 A: Well, you are supposed to conduct yourself in a professional manner, reflecting the best image of the Department, as a rule. And it's my rule. I tend to, in a way, admonish the individuals I'm with that in an assistance type situation, if somebody asked to accompany the person that I'm assisting, that there will be no arguing with anybody, there will be no confrontations, and basically that's the ground rules that I lay down. 16 The district court correctly concluded that these statements fail to prove any custom with regard to property seizures and merely indicates that he is regularly requested to recover property. No reasonable reading of this testimony could lead a rational trier of fact to conclude that Officer Wallace customarily participated in seizures of property where he did not have objectively reasonable grounds to do so. 17 Finally, despite Wade's claims to the contrary, there is no record evidence that demonstrates that Officer Wallace either had final policy-making authority in matters relating to property seizures or had his conduct ratified by an official with final policy-making authority. The mere fact that Wade's complaints to the police department did not cause an official policymaker to overrule the allegedly unconstitutional discretionary acts of Officer Wallace is insufficient to defeat summary judgment in favor of the City. See Gillette, 979 F.2d at 1348. 18