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Title: ‘Where we at?’: SWAT Gets Lost, Throws Grenade Into Innocent Elderly Man’s Home as He Watches TV
Source: Free Thought Project
URL Source: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/l ... eam-raids-elderly-man-grenade/
Published: Sep 12, 2020
Author: Matt Agorist
Post Date: 2020-09-12 19:26:52 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 3944
Comments: 33

Henry County, GA — The Free Thought Project has reported on countless cases of police officers, SWAT teams, and other law enforcement agencies going to the wrong address, kicking in doors and terrorizing entirely innocent people. This is a common trend in American policing. However, the following case out of Georgia shows a level of incompetence that rivals many of our most egregious cases.

“Something went off like a bomb in my house,” Onree Norris, 81, recalls from the night incompetent cops raided his home, throwing a flashbang grenade inside after getting lost. As the explosion blew out windows and lit up the inside of his house like a fireball, deputies with the Henry County Sheriff’s Office Special Response Team smashed down his door with a battering ram.

“Sheriff’s office, search warrant!” a deputy is heard yelling. But the search warrant was not for Norris’ home. A scathing report from 11 Alive details the utterly shocking incompetence and excessive force used to terrorize this innocent man.

Before making their way to the wrong home, deputies are recorded on their body cameras, clueless as to where they are.

“Where’s the house?,” a deputy is heard on camera asking, with no response. “Where we at? Where we at?,” he asks again, without any answer.

Another deputy asks, “where’s the f***ing house?,” as the unit continues past the actual house on their way to Norris’ house.

Instead of confirming the correct house, they simply chose Norris’ house, threw in a grenade and went right on in. Had they taken just ten seconds to read the description of the home, they would have known they were at the wrong home.

As 11 Alive reports, “the warrant described an off-white house with a black roof. Norris’ house is yellow with a gray roof. The houses even had separate driveways, addresses, and mailboxes.”

But deputies didn’t care, they just wanted to smash things and kidnap those damn “dope heads.”

When the SWAT team entered Norris’ home, Norris was temporarily kidnapped and his things smashed.

“Got to the hallway, they was all over me,” Norris said. “Grabbed my arm, twisted behind my back, and handcuffed me.”

Norris was 79 years old at the time and presented a threat to absolutely no one.

“That just like scared me to death. I’d already had heart trouble, I had heart surgery,” Norris said.

Norris is heard on the body camera video telling the deputies who just flash banged his home as he watched TV that he has heart trouble. But they couldn’t have cared less.

Eventually, police realized they were in the wrong house and so they began turning off their body cameras in a likely attempt to cover up their dangerous ignorance. Norris says that’s when a deputy told him that they will uncuff him and leave, so long as he signs this piece of paper they placed in front of him.

“So I signed my name on there,” Norris said. “I didn’t get a chance to read it.”

After police eventually left, they walked to the correct house and the heavily militarized SWAT team, equipped with M4 rifles and grenades confiscated a small amount of drugs. The term “overkill” doesn’t even begin to describe the situation and speaks to the utterly anserine and violent nature of the war on drugs.

According to 11 Alive, Norris’ grandson, Wantez Robinson, called 911 and requested an ambulance to check out his grandfather after the raid.

For two years, Norris has been fighting unsuccessfully to sue the cops involved. Thanks to qualified immunity, the officers involved remain protected.

“A pizza delivery man could have delivered a pizza to the correct address,” Norris’ attorney Darryl Scott said of the police incompetence.

“You’re able to come and kick someone’s house down, let flash grenades go, and you’re at the wrong house, and you’re not held accountable for it?,” Robinson questioned. “Someone has to be held accountable for this. You should not be able to just go into someone’s house because you feel like it,” he added.

A few days after the raid, deputies came back and fixed the door but lawyers for the SWAT team have fought vigorously for two years against any other form of compensation.

Norris’ granddaughter, LaCristy Johnson, minced no words when saying, “the government has given officers a blank check to go out in the community and break the law. They feel like they have the right to do that with no consequence.” And, unfortunately, she is right.

Based on how he was treated and the utter lack of concern given to his case, Norris says he has no confidence that these raids on the wrong homes will ever come to an end.

“They’re just gonna keep on doing it,” he said. “They probably go into somebody’s wrong house, somebody’s gonna get hurt.”

Sadly, he’s right.

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 28.

#3. To: Deckard (#0)

https://www.scribd.com/document/476074244/Norris-v-Hicks-Doc-79-Order-Granting-Summary-Judgment-16-Mar-2020

Norris v Hicks, Doc 79 Order Granting Summary Judgment (16 Mar 2020) by nolu chan on Scribd

nolu chan  posted on  2020-09-14   22:12:18 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#4. To: nolu chan (#3)

This case arises out of the execution of a search warrant at the wrong address.

Plaintiff Onree Norris, whose home was mistakenly raided, sued Defendants Jermaine Hicks, David Cody, David Lemacks, Jerome Moore, and Steven Parrish for violating his Fourth Amendment rights.

Defendants now move for summary judgment based on qualified immunity.

Qualified immunity my ass!

The cops fucked up - they need to pay.

Deckard  posted on  2020-09-14   22:42:22 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#5. To: Deckard (#4)

Qualified immunity my ass!

The cops fucked up - they need to pay.

You be their lawyer and help them collect.

Start by trying to overcome, "Plaintiff explicitly concedes that Defendants Hicks, Lemacks, Moore, and Parrish are entitled to qualified immunity against Plaintiff's claims."

Next, attempt to overcome Plaintiff's failure to name Team Leader Kendig as a defendant.

If you overcome the untimely attempt to add Team Leader Kendig, then overcome "Even if Plaintiff had shown good cause, the Court would deny his motion to amend as futile because, for many of the same reasons explained below, Agent Kendig is entitled to qualified imunity for his participation in the raid on Plaintiff's house."

Then you can apply yourself to Doc #80, CLERK'S JUDGMENT in favor of defedants against Plaintiff Norris for costs." And Doc #88 "Costs taxed in amouhnt of $1833.36 against plaintiffs."

It is a shame that everything in the bullshit article about this 2018 case is contradicted by the actual court opinion.

nolu chan  posted on  2020-09-15   12:21:28 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#6. To: nolu chan (#5)

It is a shame that everything in the bullshit article about this 2018 case is contradicted by the actual court opinion.

Actual "court opinion"?

No...this is YOUR bullshit opinion shyster.

Norris v Hicks, Doc 79 Order Granting Summary Judgment (16 Mar 2020) by nolu chan on Scribd

Deckard  posted on  2020-09-15   20:34:57 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#7. To: Deckard (#6)

No...this is YOUR bullshit opinion shyster.

Norris v Hicks, Doc 79 Order Granting Summary Judgment (16 Mar 2020) by nolu chan on Scribd

It is the Opinion of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, Atlanta Division, issued by Michael L. Brown, United States District Judge.

It is just a coincidence that yet another court opinion says that Deckard and his bullshit source of Matt Agorist are full of shit. Again. On this shit case from 2018, decided in March 2020.

You just can't deal with what the court had to say.

nolu chan  posted on  2020-09-15   23:06:00 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#9. To: nolu chan (#7)

bullshit source of Matt Agorist

How about this source assclown?

Qualified immunity: Police off the hook for no-knock raid on wrong house

Deckard  posted on  2020-09-16   19:35:47 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#10. To: Deckard (#9)

How about this source assclown?

Qualified immunity: Police off the hook for no-knock raid on wrong house

You be their lawyer and help them collect.

Start by trying to overcome, "Plaintiff explicitly concedes that Defendants Hicks, Lemacks, Moore, and Parrish are entitled to qualified immunity against Plaintiff's claims."

Next, attempt to overcome Plaintiff's failure to name Team Leader Kendig as a defendant.

If you overcome the untimely attempt to add Team Leader Kendig, then overcome "Even if Plaintiff had shown good cause, the Court would deny his motion to amend as futile because, for many of the same reasons explained below, Agent Kendig is entitled to qualified immunity for his participation in the raid on Plaintiff's house."

Then you can apply yourself to Doc #80, CLERK'S JUDGMENT in favor of defendants against Plaintiff Norris for costs." And Doc #88 "Costs taxed in amouhnt of $1833.36 against plaintiffs."

It is a shame that everything in the bullshit article about this 2018 case is contradicted by the actual court opinion. When bullshit is taken to court, it loses.

nolu chan  posted on  2020-09-17   1:52:42 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#12. To: nolu chan (#10)

In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known".

Appeals Court Says Address Mistakes On Warrants Are Mostly Harmless, Not Worth Getting Excited About

...to pretend careless warrant crafting rarely results in "mistaken searches" ignores how often it happens -- and how often this supposed low-risk "mistake" results in real harm.

"Little risk?" Here's what's actually happening in the Sixth Circuit, which covers Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.

Oak Park, Michigan (November 2019): Police raid the wrong side of a duplex, breaking windows and the front door before realizing their mistake.

Flint, Michigan (October 2014): Troopers go to the wrong house to locate a fugitive, shoot family's dog in the face.

Detroit, Michigan (May 2017): After conducting a one-day(!) human trafficking investigation, a SWAT teams raids the wrong house, handcuffs everyone present (including two children) before discovering their mistake.

Detroit, Michigan (September 2017): DEA agents raid two(!) wrong addresses. The forty officers(!!) recover no drugs. Search warrants and property receipts left at the properties by the feds were blank, according to this report.

Detroit, MIchigan (April 2017): Police raid wrong house, kill homeowner's dog.

Nashville, Tennessee (August 2020): Three cops raid wrong house, traumatizing the resident and two young children. Officers predicated the search on housing information that hadn't been updated since November 2018.

Lebanon, Tennessee (January 2006) - Officers raid wrong house, kill 61-year-old man while his wife is handcuffed in another room.

Louisville, Kentucky (October 2018) - Officers (three of whom shot and killed Breonna Taylor during another botched raid) using outdated information raid a house looking for someone who had moved out four months earlier.

Bowling Green, Kentucky (July 2016) - Police raid the wrong house looking for a Black suspect. Officers handcuff and question the homeowner, who weighs 100 pounds less than the suspect they're looking for. The interrogated homeowner is also one foot taller than the suspect. He's also white.

Louisville, Kentucky (January 2020) - Officers enter the wrong house seeking a shooting suspect, handcuffing one of the residents.

Louisville, Kentucky (July 2020) - Cops raid a vacant house looking for a drug suspect who had already been arrested and was in jail. Officers break windows, destroy a door, and handcuff the man hired to paint the interior of the vacant residence.

Cleveland, Ohio (November 2018) - Wrong house raided during a shooting investigation. Cops cause over $8,000 of physical damage to the house and spend an hour interrogating all the residents -- some of whom are disabled -- before realizing their mistake.

Strongsville, Ohio (May 2010) - A man and his 14-year-old daughter are forced out of their house and made to lay face down on the lawn until officers realize they have the wrong address.

Cleveland, Tennessee (May 2018) - DEA and local cops raid wrong house in search of murder suspect. Flashbangs are deployed into the house despite the presence of young children -- something officers should have been able to discern from the number of toys around the front entry of the residence.

This is just a small sampling. And this is just from this circuit, which covers only four of the 50 states. This happens far too frequently for it to be shrugged off by an Appeals Court, even if the facts of the case might lead the court to conclude a mistake in an affidavit doesn't warrant the suppression of evidence.

The Fourth Amendment places the sanctity of the home above all else. And yet, officers continue to perform searches without performing the due diligence required to support a home invasion. Outdated info, unverified claims by informants, minimal investigative work… it all adds up to situations where rights are violated and residents are recklessly subjected to violence and deadly force.

Deckard  posted on  2020-09-17   4:10:13 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#16. To: Deckard (#12)

[Unattributed quote] "In the United States, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known".

OPINION of the Court at 20:

2. Legal Standard for Qualified Immunity

“Section 1983 allows persons to sue individuals or municipalities acting under the color of state law for violations of federal law.” Hill v. Cundiff, 797 F.3d 948, 976 (11th Cir. 2015). “When defending against a § 1983 claim, a government official may assert the defense of qualified immunity.” Moore v. Sheriff of Seminole Cty., 748 F. App'x 229, 232 (11th Cir. 2018). An official asserting this defense must show that he “engaged in a discretionary function when he performed the acts of which the plaintiff complains.” Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252, 1264 (11th Cir. 2004). The burden then “shifts to the plaintiff to show that the defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity.” Id. This requires plaintiff to show that “(1) the defendant violated a constitutional right, and (2) this right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation.” Id. Plaintiff's two-part burden need not be “analyzed sequentially; if the law was not clearly established, [the court] need not decide if the Defendants actually violated the Plaintiff's rights.” Fils v. City of Aventura, 647 F.3d 1272, 1287 (11th Cir. 2011).

To establish a violation of clearly established law, plaintiff must show “the preexisting law was so clear that, given the specific facts facing a particular officer, one must say that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates the Constitutional right at issue.” Gates v. Khokhar, 884 F.3d 1290, 1302 (11th Cir. 2018). “[T]he clearly established law must be particularized to the facts of the case” and not “defined at a high level of generality.” White v. Pauly, 137 S. Ct. 548, 552 (2017). This is because the “the dispositive question is whether the violative nature of [defendant's] particular conduct is clearly established.” J W by & through Tammy Williams v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 904 F.3d 1248, 1260 (11th Cir. 2018). “Such specificity is especially important in the Fourth Amendment context, where the Supreme Court has recognized that it is sometimes difficult for an officer to determine how the relevant legal doctrine . . . will apply to the factual situation the officer confronts.” Id.

“The critical inquiry is whether the law provided the [officials] with fair warning that their conduct violated the Fourth Amendment.” Coffin v. Brandau, 642 F.3d 999, 1013 (11th Cir. 2011). “Fair warning is most commonly provided by materially similar [binding] precedent from the Supreme Court, [the Eleventh Circuit], or the highest state court in which the case arose.” Gates, 884 F.3d at 1296; see Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 904 F.3d at 1260 n.1 (only binding cases can create clearly established law).

[A] pre-existing precedent is materially similar to the circumstances facing the official when the specific circumstances facing the official are enough like the facts in the precedent that no reasonable, similarly situated official could believe that the factual differences between the precedent and the circumstances facing the official might make a difference to the conclusion about whether the official's conduct was lawful or unlawful, in the light of the precedent.

Merricks v. Adkisson, 785 F.3d 553, 559 (11th Cir. 2015). “Exact factual identity with a previously decided case is not required,” Coffin, 642 F.3d at 1013, but “[m]inor variations between cases may prove critical,” Youmans v. Gagnon, 626 F.3d 557, 563 (11th Cir. 2010); see Merricks, 785 F.3d at 559 (“Minor variations in some facts . . . might be very important and, therefore, be able to make the circumstances facing an official materially different than the pre-existing precedents.”). Ultimately, the unlawfulness of defendant's conduct must be “apparent” from the binding precedent on which plaintiff relies. Coffin, 642 F.3d at 1013.

If plaintiff cannot point to a materially similar binding precedent, he can establish fair warning only if defendant's conduct violated federal law “as a matter of obvious clarity.” Id. at 1014; see Gaines v. Wardynski, 871 F.3d 1203, 1208-09 (11th Cir. 2017). This requires plaintiff to show that (1) “the words of the federal statute or constitutional provision at issue are so clear and the conduct so bad that case law is not needed to establish that the conduct cannot be lawful,” or (2) “the case law that does exist is so clear and broad (and not tied to particularized facts) that every objectively reasonable government official facing the circumstances would know that the official's conduct did violate federal law when the official acted.” Gaines, 871 F.3d at 1209; see Gates, 884 F.3d at 1296-97 (“Authoritative judicial decisions may establish broad principles of law that are clearly applicable to the conduct at issue,” or “it may be obvious from explicit statutory or constitutional statements that conduct is unconstitutional”).

Obvious clarity cases are “rare” and constitute “a narrow exception to the normal rule that only case law and specific factual scenarios can clearly establish a violation.” Coffin, 642 F.3d at 1014-15; Fils, 647 F.3d at 1291. This is because “[a] reasonable official's awareness of the existence of an abstract right . . . does not equate to knowledge that his conduct infringes the right.” Coffin, 642 F.3d at 1015. And “public officials are not obligated to be creative or imaginative in drawing analogies from previously decided cases.” Id. “Thus, if case law, in factual terms, has not staked out a bright line, qualified immunity almost always protects the defendant.” Id.

Properly applied, “[t]he qualified immunity defense provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Merricks, 785 F.3d at 558. It “recognizes the problems that government officials like police officers face in performing their jobs in dynamic and sometimes perilous situations.” Id. It gives those officials “breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments,” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 743 (2011), and allows them to “carry out their discretionary duties without the fear of personal liability or harassing litigation,” Carruth v. Bentley, 942 F.3d 1047, 1054 (11th Cir. 2019). Given these policy goals and the broad scope of the defense, “courts should think long and hard before stripping defendants of immunity.” Ray v. Foltz, 370 F.3d 1079, 1082 (11th Cir. 2004).

3. Analysis

Plaintiff explicitly concedes that Defendants Hicks, Lemacks, Moore, and Parrish are entitled to qualified immunity against Plaintiff's claims. (Dkt. 62 at 1.) The only remaining issue is whether Defendant Cody is also entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The Court finds that he is.

The parties do not dispute — nor could they — that Defendant Cody was acting within his discretionary authority when he and his team executed the search warrant at Plaintiff's house. See Hartsfield v.Lemacks, 50 F.3d 950, 953 (11th Cir. 1995) (“no doubt” that officers executing a search warrant at the wrong address “were acting within their discretionary authority”). The burden thus lies with Plaintiff to show that Defendant Cody's involvement in the raid violated clearly established law.

Plaintiff claims Hartsfield is a “materially similar” precedent that provided Defendant Cody with fair warning that his conduct violated the Fourth Amendment. (Dkt. 62 at 8-10.) In Hartsfield, the deputy sheriff went with a confidential informant to the target residence. He waited outside while the informant purchased marijuana from a woman inside. He obtained a search warrant for the residence later that day. At approximately 2:30 p.m. the next day, he mistakenly led law enforcement agents to the wrong house to execute the search warrant. He forcibly opened the door with a battering ram, and the other agents went inside. The court noted that “absent probable cause and exigent circumstances, a warrantless search of a residence violates the Fourth Amendment, unless the officers engage in reasonable efforts to avoid error.” Hartsfield, 50 F.3d at 955. The court then found that the deputy sheriff was not entitled to qualified immunity because “all reasonable police officers should have known that [his] acts—searching the wrong residence when he had done nothing to make sure he was searching the house described in the warrant—violated the law.” Id. at 955 (emphasis added). The “Hartsfield Court . . . expressly rested its holding on the fact that [the deputy sheriff] did nothing” to make sure he was at the right house. White, 648 F. App'x at 842; see also Treat, 668 F. App'x at 871 (no qualified immunity because agents “did nothing to ascertain the correct address”).

The Eleventh Circuit has instructed district courts to “compare the facts of the case before the court . . . with those cases that the party opposing the motion contends show the clearly established nature of the law.” Merricks, 785 F.3d at 559. After conducting that analysis, the Court finds that this action differs materially from Hartsfield. First, the Hartsfield defendant “did nothing to make sure he was searching the [right] house,” even though he easily could have done so by checking the warrant in his possession. Hartsfield, 50 F.3d at 955. In contrast, Defendant Cody did take steps to identify the target residence, even though it was the Task Force's responsibility to take him to the correct address. He participated in the pre-execution briefing, reviewed the search warrant, confirmed that the address in the warrant matched the address identified by the Task Force, spoke to someone about the color of the target residence, reviewed an aerial image of the house's location on a map, followed the Task Force to 305 English Road, and inspected the house with a flashlight before concluding it did not fit the description he was given at the pre-execution briefing. These efforts may have proved “ineffectual, but he made them, which is more than [the Hartsfield defendant] did.” White, 648 F. App'x at 842.

Second, in Hartsfield, the only evidence of wrongdoing at the target residence was the sale of marijuana by a woman. The raid was “carefully staged and the officers were accompanied by representatives of the media,” demonstrating the absence of any “exigent circumstances.” Hartsfield, 50 F.3d at 952. Here, Defendant Cody knew Watkins had a violent criminal history, expected “numerous people with guns” (and potentially children) at the target residence, believed Watkins would know they were arriving due to counter-surveillance measures, worried that a nearby drug house would get involved in the raid, and knew his team apprehended a man on the grounds immediately after they arrived. His team also deployed two flash grenades within seconds of arriving, which revealed their presence and increased their vulnerability to any threats at the residence.

Third, and relatedly, the Hartsfield agents immediately went to the wrong address. Here, Defendant Cody and his team initially approached the correct address but reasonably believed it was not the target residence because it looked uninhabitable and abandoned and they had been told to look for an occupied home (potentially with children). By the time they realized the structure was abandoned, there was a need to act quickly given the dangers expected at the property and the likelihood that their presence had already been exposed. As the Hartsfield court cautioned, courts must “allow some latitude for honest mistakes that are made by officers in the dangerous and difficult process of making arrests and executing search warrants.” Id. at 955. This caution applies with significant force here because the process of executing the warrant at 305 English Road was particularly dangerous and difficult.

Fourth, in Hartsfield, it was the defendant who “led the officers to the wrong address.” Id. at 952. Here, the Task Force was responsible for taking Defendant Cody and his team to the target residence. Defendant Cody testified that he relied on the Task Force to adequately describe the house and to take him there. He further testified that, once the operation began, he believed his team “acquired information that justifiably led them to proceed to the second structure.” This belief was not unreasonable because his team members were significantly further forward than him, Agent Kendig — who exercised delegated authority to control the entry — was part of that team, the team participated in the pre-execution briefing and were privy to the same operational information he had, the operation was in full swing and at a dynamic stage, and his team were highly trained and experienced in executing search warrants. (See Dkt. 55-5.) Indeed, Defendant Cody testified that his team engages in forty or fifty high-risk operations each year. (Id.) Just as the Hartsfield court found that other officers “acted []reasonably in following [the deputy sheriff's] lead” to the wrong house, the Court here concludes that Defendant Cody acted reasonably in trusting his team's judgment under the dynamic circumstances they faced. Hartsfield, 50 F.3d at 956. Fifth, the Hartsfield defendant “had been to the proper residence the day before the search and had procured the search warrant based upon his own observations supervising a drug buy at [the address].” Id. at 955. In contrast, Deputy Cody and his team had never visited 305 English Road before the raid because it was too dangerous to do so. Nor were they shown any clear pictures of the residence. They also had no role in procuring the search warrant.

Sixth, the evidence in Hartfield “showed that the houses were located on different parts of the street, separated by at least one other residence, and that their appearances were distinguishable” including because one house “had a fence around it” and the other “had junk cars and the like strewn outside.” Id. at 952, 955. Here, the houses were immediately next to each other, had a similar color and design, and were not clearly separated by a fence or otherwise. It is true that 305 English Road had several cars and parts scattered around the yard (and that Plaintiff's home did not) but, given the proximity and lack of clear separation between the houses, this difference does not by itself carry significant weight. The most salient difference only confirmed Plaintiff's house was the right one: it looked like an occupied residence (which is what the team were told to look for) and 305 English Road did not.

Seventh, while the Hartsfield raid “took place during daylight hours” at about 2:30 p.m., id. at 955, Defendant Cody's team executed the search warrant in the evening when “it was starting to get dark,” (Dkt. 70 at 12:24-13:3).

These factual differences, viewed in the aggregate, are significant. A “reasonable, similarly situated official could believe that [they] might make a difference to the conclusion about whether the official's conduct was lawful or unlawful.” Merricks, 785 F.3d at 559. The Court therefore concludes that the unlawfulness of Defendant Cody's conduct was not “apparent” or “beyond debate” based on Hartsfield. al-Kidd, 565 U.S. at 741; Coffin, 642 F.3d at 1013. Plaintiff has not shown that Defendant Cody violated clear law established in Hartsfield.

nolu chan  posted on  2020-09-17   21:31:01 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#17. To: nolu chan (#16)

Hey, Paper Chase - nice copy and paste but the cops fucked up.

You can't even admit that.

Deckard  posted on  2020-09-17   22:10:12 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#19. To: Deckard (#17)

Hey, Paper Chase - nice copy and paste but the cops fucked up.

You can't even admit that.

Hey, jackass, the Plaintiffs fucked up. They sued the wrong people.

"Plaintiff explicitly concedes that Defendants Hicks, Lemacks, Moore, and Parrish are entitled to qualified immunity against Plaintiff's claims."

Which part of that do you have difficulty comprehending? The Plaintiff conceded that there was qualified immunity.

"Defendant Cody is entitled to qualified immunity—and therefore summary judgment— because Plaintiff has not shown that he violated clearly established law." Assume as true everything claimed against Defendant Cody and it would fail to show Defendant Cody violated clearly established law. That resulted in summary judgment.

As for Agent Kendig, the Plaintiff's lack of diligence prohibited his untimely addition to the case.

The Task Force was responsible for "ensuring that the officers who were going to served the warrant on a target location know where that location is." The Task Force investigated and obtained the warrant. Numbnuts sued the Response Team, not the people who were responsible for proper identification of the target residence.

Try reading the court opinion.

Finally, like all other similarly situated Plaintiffs, numbnuts was required to sue the municipality if he expected to win a judgment. Take away qualified immunity and you get Minneapolis with the people asking "where's the police?"

I can see where you would be an ANTIFA/BLM supporter.

nolu chan  posted on  2020-09-18   21:03:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#28. To: nolu chan (#19)

I can see where you would be an ANTIFA/BLM supporter.

I can't see that at all. By words or actions.

A K A Stone  posted on  2020-09-20   8:50:41 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


Replies to Comment # 28.

#29. To: A K A Stone (#28)

I can't see that at all. By words or actions.

Do away with qualified immunity for government employees acting within the scope of their employment and you will see BLM/ANTIFA. Use of any force whatever for an arrest or crowd control would make the employee subject to civil litigation. It would have an effect similar to just defunding the police, or prohibiting the use of non-lethal force such as tear gas or bean bags for crowd/riot control.

How would you perform riot control or any arrest of the unwilling without subjecting yourself to civil litigation?

Qualified immunity does not protect criminal acts; nor does it protect any act outside the scope of employment. Neither does qualified immunity prevent civil litigation, but the government entity is the defendant; not the employee acting within the scope of his employment.

nolu chan  posted on  2020-09-20 19:04:37 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


End Trace Mode for Comment # 28.

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