Supreme Court says ex-LAPD officer may be sued for excessive force in street shooting
WASHINGTON— The Supreme Court on Monday refused to block an excessive force lawsuit against a former Los Angeles Police Department officer who shot and killed a knife-wielding man whose speeding truck crashed into several cars near downtown Los Angeles.
The court denied the Los Angeles city attorney’s motion, over the objections of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.
The trial over the six-second shooting incident dragged on for more than six years.
Federal judges in California agreed that Officer Toni McBride had reason to fire four shots at the suspect in April 2020 but did not have reason to fire the final two shots that killed him.
Daniel Hernandez was allegedly under the influence of methamphetamine when he got out of his truck and walked toward the officer. As he approached, he repeatedly commanded him to “Drop the knife.”
But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year by a 6-5 vote that a jury could decide the officer went too far by firing the last two shots after the suspect fell to the ground.
The majority thought that in the one-second pause between the fourth and fifth shots, McBride “could and should have first re-evaluated the situation” and likely concluded that the suspect no longer posed a danger.
This decision would send the case to trial.
But Los Angeles city attorney’s office appeals He appealed to the Supreme Court in October, urging the justices to review and overturn the 9th Circuit’s decision.
The city’s attorneys said the appeals court failed to consider “the totality of the circumstances from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene” and that its decision refused to “permit reasonable errors in fast-moving, life-threatening encounters.”
UC Berkeley law dean Erwin Chemerinsky submitted a response on behalf of the Hernandez family. He urged the court to step aside and let the jury decide whether the officer’s actions were reasonable.
“The 9th Circuit held that it should be up to the jury to resolve the true dispute about what happened,” he said.
The justices had been considering the appeal since late February, finally rejecting it without comment on Monday.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that police officers can be sued for unreasonable searches and seizures only if they are proven to have knowingly violated clearly established laws.
But this “limited immunity” doctrine has divided judges on whether a particular rule or limit is clearly established.
9th Circuit majority He said shooting a downed suspect was out of line.
“For more than a decade, it has been clear that if a police officer shoots and wounds a suspect and the suspect falls to the ground, the officer cannot continue shooting him unless there is some indication that he poses a continuing threat,” Judge Jacqueline H. Nguyen wrote.
“A fallen and injured suspect armed only with a bladed instrument does not pose a continuing threat simply because he makes non-threatening movements on the ground. … Under such circumstances, a jury could reasonably find that he used constitutionally excessive force. If so, he is not entitled to qualified immunity,” he said.
Five dissenters said the officer made a reasonable decision on the spur of the moment.
Judge Ryan Nelson said McBride was justified in shooting Daniel Hernandez “to mitigate the risk he posed when Daniel approached him while he was armed and ignored commands to stop. … In an intense and dangerous situation where Hernandez rose and never stopped moving, he could not reasonably be expected or required to re-evaluate his fire within a narrow six-second window.”
Judge Patrick Bumatay also expressed this concern.
“Judges only review police shootings in hindsight. We review police footage years after the event. We can rewind, pause, fast-forward, analyzing the situation frame by frame. While the advent of police body camera videos is a welcome change, we cannot ignore that real life is not in slow motion,” he said.
