Opinion ID: 674655
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: And I believed him, and I retreated.

Text: 114 Q. Then what did you do? 115 A. I went down and I informed Officer Gough of the conversation, and I decided that we needed more help, specialized help. 116 Q. Okay. So what did you do? 117 A. We contacted--Officer Gough I believe contacted Headquarters by radio and asked for tactical units and negotiations units. 118 .... 119 Q. Would you explain, please, why the threat of a gun would be enough to consider the person in the house for a 5150 [mental health] evaluation? 120 A. Because he may shoot himself, he may shoot a police officer, he may shoot anybody in the community. 121 Q. And that isn't even taking into account the debris in the house. 122 A. That is correct. 123 Q. What happened next? 124 A. We closed off the street so pedestrians wouldn't walk in front of the house and cars would not drive by, and we waited for the specialized units to come and assist us. 125 To argue that the threatened introduction by Mr. Quade of a firearm into these urban circumstances doesn't create an exigency is to ignore late twentieth century reality. 126 The exigent circumstances Mr. Quade created and the dangerous felony behavior he displayed gave the police an additional justification for their response to this precarious situation. In Warden v. Hayden, 387 U.S. 294, 298-99, 87 S.Ct. 1642, 1645-46, 18 L.Ed.2d 782 (1967), the Court held that exigent circumstances justified warrantless entry into a house to search for an armed robbery suspect and weapons because delay would endanger lives of officers and citizens. See also United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42-43, 96 S.Ct. 2406, 2409-10, 49 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976) (warrantless search justified by exigent circumstances); 2 LaFave, supra, Sec. 6.1(f), at 600-02 (exigent circumstances justifying warrantless entry should be determined by distinguishing the truly 'planned' arrest from the arrest which is made in the course of an ongoing investigation in the field). Based on exigent circumstances, the police here had the authority to do exactly what they did--go into the house and arrest Mr. Quade. 127 The Second Circuit's decision in United States v. Crespo, 834 F.2d 267 (2d Cir.1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 1007, 108 S.Ct. 1471, 99 L.Ed.2d 700 (1988), is right on point. In that case, federal agents concealed themselves while an informant went to defendant's door. The informant asked the defendant why he had been threatening her. The defendant responded: I have nothing to do with you, but my people will deal with you. Id. at 269. Believing a crime had been committed in their presence, the agents broke into defendant's residence and arrested him without a warrant. The Second Circuit upheld the warrantless entry based on exigent circumstances. The court noted: (1) defendant committed a serious offense by threatening a federal informant; (2) the agents reasonably believed defendant might be armed; (3) the agents had probable cause to believe the defendant committed a crime because he committed it in their presence; and (4) the agents knew defendant was in the residence because they observed him retreat into his apartment. Id. at 270-71. Because the same factors are present in this case, I would follow Crespo and hold that exigent circumstances existed. 128 I also note that the California Penal Code provides: 129 Any peace officer who has reasonable cause to believe that the person to be arrested has committed a public offense may use reasonable force to effect the arrest, to prevent escape or to overcome resistance. 130 A peace officer who makes or attempts to make an arrest need not retreat or desist from his efforts by reason of the resistance or threatened resistance of the person being arrested; nor shall such officer ... lose his right to self-defense by the use of reasonable force to effect the arrest ... or to overcome resistance. 131 Cal.Penal Code Sec. 835a (West 1985) (emphasis added). 132 Because the police officers in this case had a forcible entry warrant and were met with the threat of armed resistance and behavior patently creating exigent circumstances, Payton is inapposite and yields to Warden v. Hayden and United States v. Crespo. 133 The majority asserts that the officers wisely eschewed the exigency argument because it was not supported by the facts. The majority relies on Captain Hettrich's alleged statement that Mr. Quade wasn't necessarily dangerous and that the decision to enter the home was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to not keep traffic blocked all day. First, whether or not the officers subjectively believed exigent circumstances existed is irrelevant. We must determine objectively whether exigent circumstances existed. Cf. Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 507, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 1329, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983) ([T]he fact that the officers did not believe there was probable cause ... would not foreclose the State from justifying [defendant's] custody by proving probable cause....). Second, the majority's reliance on Captain Hettrich's alleged statement is troubling. The statement was not before the district court when it granted summary judgment on the unlawful entry issue. The statement was only quoted in a Supplemental Brief and Trial Memorandum filed after the district court ruled on plaintiff's Payton claim. Apparently, the statement is taken from a videotape of Captain Hettrich's press briefing. I think it is highly improper to reject the existence of exigent circumstances based on the subjective impressions of one officer whose statements are not properly before this court. 134 Therefore, I conclude it is impossible to claim, as does the majority, that under these circumstances the Constitution of the United States required the police to withdraw when Mr. Quade said he was arming himself and to secure an arrest warrant before they could go into his house to arrest him and conduct the authorized inspection. It takes many hours to secure an arrest warrant. The fanciful idea that somehow a magistrate might have diffused this situation is thoroughly unrealistic. Based on over 20 years of securing arrest warrants, I cannot conceive of a magistrate taking over this emergency and withholding an arrest warrant. Such foolhardy action would only extend the exigency and delay its resolution. 135 D. The police officers had a forcible entry inspection warrant. Mr. Quade committed felonies in their presence. Mr. Quade's threatened armed resistance endangered the officers, the general public, and Quade himself. Separately, each of those facts probably authorized the entry into Mr. Quade's home without an arrest warrant. Together, their combined force is irrefutable. 136 I defy the majority to declare what legitimate Fourth Amendment purpose is served by their holding that was not already served when the magistrate authorized a forcible entry and inspection of Mr. Quade's home. All the law I can find indicates that what the City did was not only within the limits of permissible behavior, but followed the prescriptive requirements of the Supreme Court and the Constitution in all material respects. Retreating to the chambers of a magistrate for a third time and securing an arrest warrant would not have altered Mr. Quade's behavior one whit. If the police had returned with an arrest warrant, Mr. Quade would still have been waiting for them, with his gun. 137 Not only was it not clearly established that the police could not do what they did, but indeed, the law was solidly on their side. In my judgment, the law is so clearly on their side that we do not even reach the question of qualified immunity on this issue. 5 When measured by the appropriate standards, the defendants' conduct was perfectly constitutional. II 138 It follows from my conclusion that because the police's entry into Mr. Quade's home was lawful and reasonable, the force they used when he pointed his gun at them was reasonable as a matter of law. The majority discounts the danger posed by an armed, urban, barricaded recluse threatening to shoot police and city inspectors. This claim is, with all respect to my colleagues, monumentally mistaken. Anyone who has ever been involved in such a situation knows how dangerous it is. If my colleagues and I were in the area, we would run like blazes for cover when Mr. Quade mentioned a firearm, or certainly hide behind something bulletproof. Surely my colleagues wouldn't suggest everybody should have just gone away and left Mr. Quade alone. Would we blithely walk up to Mr. Quade's door to serve the arrest warrant the majority says should have been secured? Of course not. The situation was terribly precarious. We judges don't go out to serve the warrants we order executed. We ask the police to do it for us. Telling the police that this situation was not dangerous would be laughable if it were not so deadly serious. 139 Both the majority and the plaintiff concede that once Mr. Quade pointed his gun at the police and pulled the trigger, the officers acted reasonably by shooting Quade in self-defense. In fact, the police showed tremendous self-restraint after they entered Quade's home. Quade pointed the gun at the police and panned it back and forth across the officers' faces. The police responded by ordering Quade repeatedly to drop the gun. Quade then said, I told you I was going to use it. Still, the police held their fire. In fact, the police did not shoot Quade until he pulled the trigger twice! 140 The unchallenged declaration of the lieutenant in charge of San Francisco Police Department's Tactical Squad is dispositive on this issue: 141 The San Francisco Police Department's standing order on the use of force indicates that we could have shot Quade as soon as he pointed the gun at us and became a threat to the officers. We were risking our lives by not firing immediately, but we did not want to shoot him. Once he pulled the trigger, he gave us no choice. 142 So, if the shooting itself is not unreasonable, where's the excessive force? The majority says [t]he force which was applied must be balanced against the need for that force. To make that determination, the majority again mistakenly applies a subjective analysis, asserting that the officers' purpose for entering Mr. Quade's residence somehow determines whether the force was reasonable. But according to Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 397, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 1872-73, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989) (internal quotations omitted), the reasonableness inquiry in an excessive force case is an objective one: the question is whether the officers' actions are objectively reasonable in light of the facts and circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation. 143 The entry was either lawful or unlawful; I think it was, the majority thinks it wasn't. Once inside the house, however, the police certainly did not violate the Constitution by defending themselves when Quade pulled the trigger of his revolver. Deploying a SWAT team when Mr. Quade threatened to shoot a police officer certainly seems reasonable. I just don't see an excessive force claim separate from the unlawful entry claim. Does the majority really want to take issue with the particular tactics used by the police to enter Quade's home? Should we decide how many hours of negotiations must take place before the police can disarm an armed, mentally unstable recluse? Should we determine tactical methods of entry? 144 Such a posture converts members of the judicial branch of government into tactical managers of the police. The court did its job by ordering Mr. Quade's privacy to yield. It was then the police's job to effectuate an entry on behalf of the health inspectors. Judge Kozinski harbors a view of the magistrate/peace officer relationship that is not only unrealistic, but inappropriate. As a practical matter, we judges are ill-equipped (although sometimes we don't think so) to make tactical decisions, especially when weapons are involved and lives are at stake. Anyone who has ever spent time in the field understands how foolhardy it would be for judges, or even prosecutors, to attempt to tell the police how to flush out an armed, barricaded subject. Experienced peace officers understand the necessity of resolving such a situation as quickly as feasible. Leaving Mr. Quade alone would create not only an unacceptable danger for anyone who must then approach his house, it would also continue to put Mr. Quade in danger of injuring himself. The majority may be prepared to second-guess these tough decisions. I am not. 145 Ironically, the plaintiff says the police should have used tear gas or police dogs to discharge their quarry from his home. I didn't know we used tear gas and police dogs to attack people who are not dangerous. Moreover, in other cases in our circuit, we're told that police dogs constitute deadly force.