Court Opinion

ID: 9554892
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-10 15:01:27.269671+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:37:30.747050
License: Public Domain

United States Court of Appeals
                            For the Eighth Circuit
                        ___________________________

                                No. 22-1763
                        ___________________________

     Estate of De’Angelo Brown, Deceased through Bryce Brewer, Special
                              Administrator

                                    Plaintiff - Appellant

                                      v.

 E.C. West, Chief, West Memphis Police Department; Prince Bohanon, Member,
West Memphis Police Department; Michael Clark, Member, West Memphis Police
Department; John Buford, Member, West Memphis Police Department; Matthew
  McKee, Member, West Memphis Police Department; Daniel Magill, Member,
 West Memphis Police Department; James Presley, III, Member, West Memphis
                            Police Department

                                 Defendants - Appellees
                               ____________

                   Appeal from United States District Court
                for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Northern
                                ____________

                         Submitted: February 21, 2023
                            Filed: August 10, 2023
                                ____________

Before SMITH, Chief Judge, STRAS and KOBES, Circuit Judges.
                              ____________

KOBES, Circuit Judge.

     De’Angelo Brown was a passenger in a car that led West Memphis Police
Department (WMPD) officers on a dangerous chase. He was shot and killed when
officers tried to stop the car, and his estate sued them under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for
excessive force and state-created danger. The district court 1 granted summary
judgment to the officers, and we affirm.

                                          I.

      An officer tried to stop a car for having improperly lit high beams. Instead of
pulling over, the driver led police on a lengthy and dangerous high-speed chase.
Police tried to end the pursuit using stop sticks and multiple vehicle maneuvers but
were unsuccessful. Finally, after hitting a police car head on, the car stopped.

       Brown sat in the passenger seat with his hands up. As an officer pulled the
passenger door handle, the driver put the car in reverse. The officer’s hand got stuck
in the door, causing him to get dragged alongside the car. The driver then backed
into a police car and rolled forward over the officer’s legs. The officer on the ground
started shooting at the driver, and as the car moved toward other officers, they also
started to shoot. Ultimately, 14 bullets hit the driver and 3 hit Brown, killing both.

      Brown’s estate sued WMPD officers and the chief of police under § 1983 and
the Arkansas Civil Rights Act, alleging excessive force and state-created danger,
among other things. The district court granted summary judgment to the officers,
concluding that Brown wasn’t seized within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment
and that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on the state-created danger
claim. Brown’s estate appeals.

                                          II.

      We review the grant of summary judgment de novo. Rynders v. Williams, 650
F.3d 1188, 1194 (8th Cir. 2011). “Summary judgment is proper if, after viewing the

      1
        The Honorable Kristine G. Baker, United States District Judge for the Eastern
District of Arkansas.
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evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the
nonmovant, no genuine issues of material fact exist and the movant is entitled to
judgment as a matter of law.” Rau v. Roberts, 640 F.3d 324, 327 (8th Cir. 2011)
(citation omitted).

                                          A.

       We first turn to the estate’s excessive force claim. To determine whether the
officers used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment, we “ask
whether the amount of force used was objectively reasonable under the particular
circumstances.”2 Banks v. Hawkins, 999 F.3d 521, 525 (8th Cir. 2021) (cleaned up).
We analyze reasonableness “from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the
scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight,” and “balanc[e] . . . the nature
and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against
the countervailing governmental interests at stake.” Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S.
765, 774−75 (2014) (citations omitted).

       Here, it is undisputed that Brown had his hands up. And we have no doubt
that shooting into the car posed a substantial risk of serious bodily harm to him. But
the driver had just led police on a reckless, high-speed chase, which involved
swerving into oncoming traffic, hitting a police car, and resisting efforts to stop the
car by other means. By the time officers started shooting, the car had run over one
officer’s legs and was headed toward others. All things considered, officers acted
reasonably in using deadly force, and the district court didn’t err in granting
summary judgment. See id. at 776−77 (holding that officers acted reasonably where
they shot the plaintiff at the end of a high-speed chase and where the plaintiff evaded
and posed “a grave public safety risk” at the time of the shooting).

      2
       We assume without deciding that Brown was seized within the meaning of
the Fourth Amendment.
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                                          B.

      We turn now to the estate’s state-created danger claim. “We have held the
Due Process Clause imposes a duty on state actors to protect or care for citizens . . .
when the state affirmatively places a particular individual in a position of danger the
individual would not otherwise have faced.” Gregory v. City of Rogers, 974 F.2d
1006, 1010 (8th Cir. 1992).

       Brown suggests that officers violated his due process rights by failing to
protect him from the danger they created. But as the district court explained, the
“defendant officers did not place Mr. Brown in a position of danger that he would
not otherwise have faced.” It was the driver who put Brown in extreme danger, not
the police officers. See generally Plumhoff, 572 U.S. at 778 (noting that a driver put
a passenger “in danger by fleeing and refusing to end the chase”). For this reason,
Brown’s state-created danger claim fails.

                                         III.

      We affirm the judgment of the district court.
                      ______________________________

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