Court Opinion

ID: 9352549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-06 20:08:28.347237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:57:42.389578
License: Public Domain

J-S41042-22

NON-PRECEDENTIAL DECISION - SEE SUPERIOR COURT I.O.P. 65.37

    COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA               :   IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF
                                               :        PENNSYLVANIA
                                               :
                v.                             :
                                               :
                                               :
    KENNETH WAYNE DEAVERS                      :
                                               :
                       Appellant               :   No. 796 MDA 2022

          Appeal from the Judgment of Sentence Entered May 16, 2022
      In the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County Criminal Division at
                        No(s): CP-22-CR-0002508-2018

BEFORE:      LAZARUS, J., MURRAY, J., and STEVENS, P.J.E.*

MEMORANDUM BY STEVENS, P.J.E.:                        FILED JANUARY 06, 2023

        Appellant, Kenneth Wayne Deavers, appeals from the judgment of

sentence entered in the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County after he

was retried before a jury on the charge of resisting arrest1 and found guilty.2

Herein, Appellant raises several challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence

offered to prove the charge of resisting arrest. After careful review, we affirm.

____________________________________________

*   Former Justice specially assigned to the Superior Court.

1   18 Pa.C.S. § 5104.

2 Appellant was retried before a jury on the charge of resisting arrest pursuant
to this Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Deavers, 236 A.3d 1118
(Table) (Pa. Super. 2020) (unpublished), which overturned Appellant’s non-
jury trial conviction for failure of disorderly persons to disperse upon official
order, 18 Pa.C.S. § 5502, vacated judgment of sentence, and remanded for a
new trial on the charges of resisting arrest, supra, public drunkenness, 18
Pa.C.S. § 5505, and disorderly conduct, 18 Pa.C.S. § 5503(a)(4). After the
jury returned its verdict of guilty, the trial judge found Appellant guilty on the
summary offenses of disorderly conduct and public drunkenness.
J-S41042-22

         The relevant facts occurred shortly after 2 a.m. on Thursday, November

23, 2017, Thanksgiving morning, when one of downtown Harrisburg’s

traditionally busiest bar nights of the year was drawing to a close. As the

“closing time” crowd of predominantly young adults exited five neighboring

bars on 2nd Street, the sidewalks became so congested that pedestrians with

nowhere else to walk began to spill onto the street.

         In anticipation of related traffic and safety issues, at least ten law

enforcement officers and agents from the Harrisburg City Police Department

and the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco were already present and

assigned the duty of preventing disturbances while safely directing foot traffic

to clear the area. Among the first official decisions made at the scene was to

“shut down the street” with respect to vehicular traffic until the police “could

get the people safely and effectively moved out of the downtown area.” N.T.

at 25.

         Officer Anthony Fiore, who was in full uniform, was directing pedestrians

walking in the street to return to the sidewalks and continue walking in a safe

manner to their vehicles or homes without interruption.          N.T. at 24.   At

Appellant’s jury trial, the officer described the importance of maintaining a

calm and steady mass departure under the circumstances that were present

that night.     Specifically, he explained that he has “experienced everything

downtown during the bar-close hours from fights, arguments, stabbings,

shootings . . . been present for a homicide, the whole gamut,” and he

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confirmed that the risk of violence is enhanced when the police are vastly

outnumbered as was the case on the night in question. N.T. at 22-23. He

amplified:

      When [pedestrians] start blocking sidewalks or streets, it starts
      creating a hazard, not only for the police, because you’re . . . kind
      of losing control of where people can move, foot traffic, other
      people walking down the street trying to get through, emergency
      vehicles, it can quickly escalate into a situation where you have
      no control.

N.T. at 24.

      The police-citizen encounter in question occurred while Officer Fiore was

repeatedly announcing verbal instructions, accompanied by arm motions, to

pedestrians. N.T. at 26. It was at this time he noticed that Appellant, who

was walking southbound, had stopped and returned “a blank stare” in

response to his instructions. N.T at 27. The officer therefore repeated the

instructions and arm motions thinking, perhaps, that Appellant had not heard

him. Id. Appellant, however, simply continued to stare at him. Id.

      The third time Officer Fiore repeated himself, Appellant remained in

place and replied, “You don’t have to play the fucking violin for me, bro,”

making an apparent reference to the officer’s arm motions.          Id.   At that

moment, the officer assessed Appellant’s noncompliant actions, words, and

demeanor and decided it would be imprudent to allow him to join a developing

logjam of pedestrians to the immediate south, where yet another bar—

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Sawyer’s--was letting out its large group of patrons.       N.T. at 27-28.    He

explained:

      I said[, “] alright, you gotta go[,”] and I pointed north. The reason
      I pointed north is because I was north of the crowd that was
      coming out of the Sawyer’s Bar and I didn’t feel that it would be
      prudent at that point to allow people to keep walking into the
      crowd, especially somebody who is not listening to me from
      the get-go.

N.T. at 28 (emphasis added).
      From that moment, the officer testified, the encounter was brief.

Appellant made a comment about needing to continue south to reach his car,

but the officer, in his own terms, “stood [his] ground” on not allowing

Appellant to become part of the crowd, given Appellant’s behavior and refusal

to follow instructions.   According to the officer’s testimony, the following

interaction ensued:

      So, he made, not an aggressive step or anything, but he made a
      motion to start coming back south, and I put my hand out and I
      took a couple steps north [towards] him and I put my hand on his
      chest.

      After one or two steps back to the north, he made a motion with
      his other arm, one of his arms where he swatted my hand off his
      chest.
N.T. at 29.
      In what the officer described as a split-second decision arising from

concern about Appellant’s behavior up to and including the moment Appellant

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struck3 the uniformed police officer’s arm, he grabbed ahold of Appellant’s

jacket and took Appellant to the ground to effectuate an arrest. 4,5         The

____________________________________________

3 When asked to demonstrate to the jury the motion that Appellant made as
the officer put his hand out, the officer testified, “as my hand is on his chest,
he made the motion to remove my hand from his chest. So, he struck the top
of my arm with one of his arms.” N.T. at 29. He confirmed, in response to
follow-up questioning, that Appellant had made a “swiping motion, like [the
officer] just demonstrate[d] today. . . .” N.T. at 30

4 Although our probable cause to arrest inquiry focuses on whether sufficient
circumstances, objectively viewed, existed to support the arrest, see infra,
we note that Officer Fiore described the subjective reasons behind his decision
to arrest Appellant, whom he deemed a threat:

       [I]t’s going back to square one, refusing the orders to leave the
       street; the verbal queues [sic] that he gave me in his comment;
       and then when you start putting your hands on a police officer, a
       reasonable person would not do that.

N.T. at 30.

5  Special Agent Jarrod Chittum of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and
Firearms was partnered with Officer Fiore and assisting with crowd control
nearby when he heard Appellant’s comment to Officer Fiore. He watched
Appellant walk toward Officer Fiore and “strike down Fiore’s hand, knocking it
out of the way,” after Fiore had placed his hand to stop Appellant. When
Officer Fiore grabbed ahold of Appellant and both went to the ground, Chittum
intervened. N.T. at 60.

Chittum initially denied defense counsel’s suggestion that Appellant had
swatted Fiore’s arm away because officer Fiore was pushing him backwards.
“No, I don’t think there was any pushing at all. My observation would be, like,
just stop, like, as he was walking towards him. It wasn’t like a forceful push
at all.” In the same moment, however, he expressed some doubt and offered
that “there may have been” a push, but I do not believe that there was a solid
– or a forceful push.” N.T. at 65.

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Commonwealth showed what it termed a “blurry video”6 of this encounter.

When the officer resumed his testimony after completion of the video

presentation, he detailed Appellant’s conduct after the two went to the ground.

       Officer Fiore:       Like I said, he rolled to his back. I kind of rolled
                            off as I hit the ground, and then he went into
                            like a defensive mode. Like I said, he pulled his
                            legs up into his chest, tucked his arms, so
                            myself and several other officers in an attempt
                            to get him detained and in handcuffs, we were
                            trying to roll him over, but in doing so getting
                            his arms out from underneath his body became
                            a significant struggle.
        Prosecutor:         And as he’s on the ground struggling, are you
                            giving verbal instructions to him?
                     A:     Correct. Stop resisting, give me your hands.
                            There’s multiple officers giving the instructions.
                     Q:     So do you know how many officers were
                            assisting you?
                     A:     Probably three or four physically interacting
                            with Mr. Deavers and then several others were
                            standing, because obviously there’s a lot of
                            people there. They are standing to make sure
                            that nobody interacts with what we are doing.

____________________________________________

6 The Commonwealth acknowledged it was “going to play a video. It's a blurry
video, but we are going to try to play it here.” N.T. at 31. After the court
recessed, and outside the presence of the jury, the trial court acknowledged
to counsel the “poor quality of the video and how far away it was from [the
subjects]”, and it doubted the jury could have evaluated it. The trial court,
therefore, agreed that a replay with a zoom feature employed might prove
helpful. The jury viewed the zoomed version, after which the trial court
addressed the jury regarding the quality of the video, saying, “I know it was
difficult to see and it is blurry and hopefully you’ll get enough view of it that
you’ll be satisfied you’ve seen it all.” N.T. at 56-58. The zoomed version then
was played a second time.

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                  Q:    So did the call ever go over the radio that you
                        were engaged in a struggle and other officers
                        showed up at that point?
                  A:    Yes. Another – I didn’t make the call as I was
                        engaged with Mr. Deavers, but someone did,
                        another officer.
                  Q:    So were finally able to subdue Mr. Deavers?
                  A:    We were, after the struggle, yes.
                  Q:    And you said three to four officers?
                  A:    Correct.
                  Q:
                        ...
                        I learned after the fact that one of the officers
                        did attempt to use the Taser.
                        ...
                  Q:    As you are interacting with him after that, after
                        he’s in custody, I’m assuming you are in fairly
                        close range with him?
                  A:    Yes.
                  Q:    Did he display any signs of intoxication at that
                        point?
                  A:    To me he did, yes.
                  Q:    What were some of those signs?
                  A:    His eyes; his verbal defiance; his reluctance to
                        listen to general commands or instruction from
                        uniform[ed] police; the odor of alcohol from his
                        person, breath, body.
N.T. 34-35, 37.
      At the conclusion of trial, the jury returned a guilty verdict on the

charges of resisting arrest, while the trial court found Appellant guilty of the

summary offenses of public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Sentencing

immediately followed trial, as Appellant had previously served 24 months’

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probation and paid fines on the convictions from his first trial, and no further

sentence was imposed. Appellant filed a timely notice of appeal on May 25,

2022, and the trial court ordered him to file a concise statement of matters

complained of on appeal.

       Appellant raises the following issues on appeal:

       1. Whether the evidence was insufficient to prove the arrest of
          Mr. Deavers was lawful, when the officer’s rationale for
          arresting Mr. Deavers was for an offense [failure to disperse]
          vacated in Commonwealth v. Deavers, 236 A.3d 1118
          (Table) (Pa. Super. 2020) (unpublished), thus rendering the
          arrest unlawful?

       2. Was there insufficient evidence to show that, at the time Officer
          Fiore Touched Mr. Deavers he was engaged in an official
          activity which required acquiescence by Mr. Deavers?

       3. Was there insufficient evidence that Mr. Deavers acted to
          create a substantial risk of bodily injury to officers or employed
          sufficient force to overcome, when his conduct was the result
          of Officer Fiore’s aggressive behavior towards him due to Mr.
          Deaver’s not submitting to his authority.

Brief for Appellant, at 5.7

____________________________________________

7 Appellant appropriately concedes in his argument that if the Commonwealth
proved a law enforcement officer was effecting a lawful arrest at the time a
defendant was resisting as defined under the resisting arrest statute, then the
Commonwealth was not required also to prove the defendant intended to
prevent the officer from discharging any other duty, as such elements are
stated in the alternative. Therefore, as we determine, infra, that Appellant
resisted Officer Fiore’s attempt to effect a lawful, initial arrest, we need not
address whether Officer Fiore was also discharging any other duty at the time.

                                           -8-
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       With respect to challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence, this Court

has stated:

       [O]ur standard of review of sufficiency claims requires that we
       evaluate the record “in the light most favorable to the verdict
       winner giving the prosecution the benefit of all reasonable
       inferences to be drawn from the evidence.” “Evidence will be
       deemed sufficient to support the verdict when it establishes each
       material element of the crime charged and the commission thereof
       by the accused, beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Commonwealth v. Rahman, 75 A.3d 497, 500 (Pa. Super. 2013) (citations

omitted).

       Resisting Arrest is defined as follows:

       A person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if, with
       the intent of preventing a public servant from effecting a lawful
       arrest or discharging any other duty, the person creates a
       substantial risk of bodily injury to the public servant or anyone
       else, or employs means justifying or requiring substantial force to
       overcome the resistance.

18 Pa.C.S. § 5104.

       In Appellant’s first sufficiency challenge to his conviction for resisting

arrest, he maintains the Commonwealth failed to prove police were effecting

a lawful arrest at the time he resisted.         Because Officer Fiore’s subjective

reason for arresting him was invalidated by this Court on direct appeal,8

Appellant now argues that the Commonwealth could not have produced

evidence to establish that the officer acted on probable cause to initiate an

____________________________________________

8 In Deavers, supra, this Court held Appellant had not violated the failure to
disperse statute because evidence failed to show he was part of a group of
three or more persons disregarding police orders to disperse.

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arrest.   We disagree, as the Commonwealth introduced sufficient facts at

Appellant’s criminal trial to prove that the facts and circumstances known to

Officer Fiore at the time he initiated the arrest in question supplied him with

probable cause to arrest Appellant for disorderly conduct.

      “[A] lawful arrest is an element of the crime of resisting arrest,” and

“the lawfulness of an arrest depends on the existence of probable cause to

arrest the defendant.”     Rahman, 75 A.3d at 504 (citations omitted).

“Probable cause to arrest exists when the facts and circumstances within the

police officer’s knowledge and of which the officer has reasonably trustworthy

information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a person of reasonable

caution in the belief that an offense has been committed by the person to be

arrested.” Commonwealth v. Weaver, 76 A.3d 562, 565 (Pa. Super. 2013)

(citations omitted).   See Commonwealth v. Clark, 735 A.2d 1248, 1252

(Pa. 1999) (holding probable cause must be viewed not from the perspective

of the offender, but from the vantage point of a prudent, reasonable, cautious

police officer on the scene at the time of the arrest guided by his experience

and training).

      Whether probable cause exists at the time a police officer stops someone

or conducts a search “is predominately an objective inquiry.” Ashcroft v. al-

Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 736 (2011) (quotations and citations omitted). “[T]he

question that we ask is not whether the officer’s belief was correct or more

likely true than false; rather, we require only a probability, and not a prima

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facie showing, of criminal activity.” Commonwealth v. Miller, No. 393 MDA

2019, 2020 WL 754858 (Pa. Super. filed Feb. 14, 2020) (unpublished), appeal

denied, 239 A.3d 1090 (Pa. 2020), (citing Commonwealth v. Williams, R.,

2 A.3d 611, 616 (Pa. Super. 2010)). Cf Commonwealth v. Stokes, 266

A.3d 621 (Pa. Super. Oct. 8, 2021) (unpublished) (recognizing an officer’s

mistake of law relied upon in carrying out a constitutional search or seizure

may nevertheless be reasonable if supported by specific facts supporting the

search or seizure).9

       According to Officer Fiore, the encounter in question occurred amid

precarious circumstances—namely, the late hour and the largest crowd of

bargoers of the year exiting simultaneously onto 2nd Street—and he knew from

his extensive law enforcement experience in that location that a steady and

orderly mass exit of such a pedestrian crowd was imperative to maintaining

public safety. Most people were complying, but Appellant elected to stop and

stare at the officer in deliberate disregard of the officer’s repeated directives

to keep walking, and he used vulgar sarcasm to mock the officer’s efforts to

aid the public.

       Both concerned by this behavior and informed by his experience with

closing time fights and clashes on 2nd Street, Officer Fiore determined that

____________________________________________

9 Under Pennsylvania Rule of Appellate Procedure 126(b), nonprecedential
decisions (referring to unpublished memorandum decisions of the Superior
Court) filed after May 1, 2019, may be cited for their persuasive value.

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Appellant should be kept apart from the gathering, stationary crowd outside

of Sawyer’s bar just to his south to minimize the potential for conflict.

Therefore, he directed Appellant to exit the location by walking northbound.

       Appellant, however, ignored the officer’s directive and resumed his

southbound course. When Officer Fiore placed his hand on Appellant’s chest

to block Appellant’s defiant advance, Appellant struck the officer’s arm in an

effort to continue on his way. It was then that the officer decided to arrest

Appellant for disobeying multiple orders to leave the area.

       The facts and circumstances of Appellant’s repeated noncompliance with

public safety directives coupled with his forceful removal of an officer’s hand

to override such directives were known by Officer Fiore at the time of their

commission, and they were sufficient to warrant an officer in Officer Fiore’s

position, exercising reasonable caution, to believe Appellant had committed

the arrestable offense of disorderly conduct as defined at 18 Pa.C.S. §

5503(a)(4).10

____________________________________________

10 The crime of disorderly conduct proscribed in Subsection 5503(a)(4) is
defined as follows: “[a] person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with intent to
cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a
risk thereof, he . . . creates a hazardous or physically offensive
condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor.”
18 Pa.C.S.A. § 5503(a)(4) (emphasis added). With respect to grading, “[a]n
offense under this section is a misdemeanor of the third degree if the intent
of the actor is to cause substantial harm or serious inconvenience, or if he
persists in disorderly conduct after reasonable warning or request to desist.
Otherwise, disorderly conduct is a summary offense.” Id. at § 5503(b)
emphasis added.

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      In reaching this conclusion, we find a recent three-judge, unpublished

panel decision of this Court instructive. In Miller, supra, the defendant Miller

challenged the suppression court’s order denying his motion to suppress

evidence obtained after he was arrested for disorderly conduct pursuant to

Section 5503(a)(4).

      Specifically, the suppression court rejected Miller’s argument that police

lacked probable cause to arrest him for repeatedly defying orders that he leave

the scene of an area the police were trying to secure. The record established

that police officers were “in the process of deescalating a chaotic and hostile

environment, and restoring public order by apprehending the individuals

engaged in multiple fights, and dispersing a crowd of thirty to seventy

individuals.”    Id. at *6.

       In affirming the suppression court’s determination that probable cause

existed to arrest Miller for disorderly conduct, we reasoned:

      Miller, who was visibly intoxicated, continuously ignored police
      directives to leave the convenience store parking lot that police
      were attempting to secure, and instead kept trying to reenter that
      specific area. The officers did not need to establish that Miller
      intentionally created a hazardous condition. Rather, they merely
      needed to believe that his intoxication and refusal to comply with
      multiple police directives to leave the area established a
      probability that his continued presence created a hazardous
      condition to himself, the officers, and the public.            See
      Commonwealth v. Williams, R., 2 A.3d at 616 (holding that for
      probable cause we require only a probability, and not a prima facie
      showing, of criminal activity).

Miller, at *6.

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      On the question of whether Officer Fiore similarly possessed probable

cause to believe Appellant had recklessly created a hazardous condition to

himself, the officers, and the public, we find the present facts compare

favorably to those in Miller. Here, though at the time of the arrest Officer

Fiore had not yet ascertained that Appellant was intoxicated, he had witnessed

circumstances quite similar to those present in Miller, as Appellant was

displaying odd, scofflaw behavior at a scene where multiple law enforcement

officers were attempting to maintain order among a large, overflowing crowd

of closing-time pedestrians. Moreover, whereas the defendant’s conduct in

Miller was non-violent, Appellant physically opposed Officer Fiore’s final

attempt to redirect his movements, as he struck the officer’s arm away.

      Regarding such physical opposition to an officer’s directive, we have

observed:

      Inherent in the act of physically attempting to impede a law
      enforcement officer from carrying out his or her official duties in
      the public arena is the risk of creating a condition hazardous or
      physically offensive in nature. We have held, “the reckless
      creation of a risk of public alarm, annoyance or inconvenience is
      as criminal as actually causing such sentiments.”

Commonwealth v. Love, 896 A.2d 1276, 1286 (Pa. Super. 2006) (citation

omitted).

      Therefore, because Officer Fiore personally knew of and witnessed the

facts and circumstances to giving rise to the reasonable belief that Appellant

had recklessly created a risk of public inconvenience through acts serving no

legitimate purpose of the actor, he had probable cause to arrest Appellant for

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disorderly conduct under Subsection 5503(a)(4). Accordingly, we discern no

merit to Appellant’s claim that the evidence adduced at his criminal trial failed

to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the arrest against which he resisted

was a lawful arrest.

      In Appellant’s final issue, he maintains that even assuming Officer Fiore

possessed cause to arrest under the circumstances, the Commonwealth failed

to establish that Appellant, with the intent of preventing a lawful arrest, either

created a substantial risk of bodily injury to the public servant or employed

means justifying or requiring substantial force to overcome the resistance.

Instead, Appellant maintains, the evidence demonstrated that he was simply

reacting to Officer Fiore’s act of taking him to the ground to effect the arrest.

We disagree.

      Appellant essentially argues that his passive resistance to law

enforcement officers’ attempts to place him in custody was not culpable under

the resisting arrest statute. Our jurisprudence has recognized, however, that

such an argument completely ignores the statutory language of section 5104

“criminalizing   resistance   behavior   that     requires   substantial   force   to

surmount.” Commonwealth v. Thompson, 922 A.2d 926, 928 (Pa. Super.

2007) (holding arrestee’s keeping her arms and legs interlocked with those of

her husband, which made officers’ attempts to place her under arrest

“exhausting,”    amounted     to   “substantial    force”    needed   to   overcome

resistance).

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       Our    review    of   the   record,     as   reproduced   supra,   shows   the

Commonwealth proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant employed

means justifying or requiring substantial force to overcome the resistance. As

observed by the trial court, which presided over Appellant’s jury trial, the

evidence showed that “it took a struggle of three law enforcement officers and

the use of a taser twice to restrain [Appellant.]” [N.T. at] 35, 63, 68-70. The

jury could reasonably conclude that [Appellant’s] resistance justified or

required a substantial effort to overcome. Having so found, this basis can

support Appellant’s conviction even if the jury did not believe that Appellant

presented a substantial risk of bodily injury.” Trial Court Opinion, at 7-8.11

       Judgment of sentence affirmed.

Judgment Entered.

Joseph D. Seletyn, Esq.
Prothonotary

Date: 01/06/2023

____________________________________________

11See Commonwealth v. Wertelet, 696 A.2d 206, 211 (Pa. Super. 1997)
(“One commits resisting arrest if one employs means justifying or requiring
substantial force to overcome the resistance. Examples of “means” which
would undoubtedly satisfy the Code by requiring substantial force to overcome
would be any kind of significant physical resistance, including punching,
shoving, squirming, biting, or kicking.”) (internal citations and quotation
marks omitted).

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