Brown v. City of Colorado Springs

709 F. App'x 906
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedOctober 10, 2017
Docket16-1206
StatusUnpublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 709 F. App'x 906 (Brown v. City of Colorado Springs) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brown v. City of Colorado Springs, 709 F. App'x 906 (10th Cir. 2017).

Opinion

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

Gregory A. Phillips, Circuit Judge

Qualified immunity “shields officials from civil liability so long as their conduct ‘does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.’” Mullenix v. Luna, — U.S.-, 136 S.Ct. 305, 308, 193 L.Ed.2d 255 (2015) (quoting Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009)). “[T]he clearly established law must be ‘particularized’ to the- facts of the case” and may not be defined at a high level of generality. White v. Pauly, — U.S.-, 137 S.Ct. 548, 552, 196 L.Ed.2d 463 (2017) (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)). Here, we consider whether ten police officers violated a suspect’s clearly established Fourth Amendment rights when they detonated an explosive device while executing an arrest warrant. Under the facts of this case, we conclude that the officers didn’t do so. We decline to exercise pendent appellate jurisdiction over Brown’s municipal-liability and official-capacity claims.

BACKGROUND

I, Factual Background

On May 29, 2012, at 11:55 p.m., officers used a robot to place an explosive device in Ronald Brown’s living room. Officers designed a frame for the explosive device to create a 16-by-16-inch hole in the floor. The explosive device worked as expected and blew a hole that size in the floor. Contrary to the officers’ belief that Brown would be in a back basement room, away from the blast, Brown was lying directly below the blast. The debris from the blast landed on Brown, broke his leg, and caused shrapnel wounds. All told, Brown spent 12 to 14 days in the hospital’s intensive-care unit. The explosion was the culmination of events that started two days earlier.

A. Events Leading to Brown’s Arrest

On May 27, 2012, at about 6:30 p.m., Brown was involved in an altercation with a neighbor. Earlier, a thirteen-year-old boy had been swinging from a tree outside Brown’s townhome when the branch broke. Brown came out of his townhome, chased the boy with a baseball bat, and threatened to kill him. 1 The boy ran to his neighboring townhome and told his mom and her boyfriend. The boy’s mother and her boyfriend, armed with a baseball bat, confronted Brown outside of his town-home. After the three argued for a few minutes, Brown pulled out a revolver and fired a shot into the ground. He then threatened to shoot the boy’s mother and her boyfriend. The boy’s mother and her boyfriend retreated to their townhome, and someone called the police. Brown returned to his townhome.

Within 15 minutes of the call, police officers arrived at Brown’s townhome. After they arrived, the officers spent thirty minutes knocking on Brown’s door and yelling for him -to come out. But no one answered the door, and the officers saw no movement inside the townhome. Officers called Brown and left several messages on his cell phone, urging him to return their call so they could get his side of the story. From witnesses, officers learned that the mother’s boyfriend had approached Brown in the street with a baseball bat, leaving the officers unsure whether Brown had been defending himself. Because they couldn’t tell whether Brown was inside his home, officers left after two hours. 2

After leaving, officers continued calling Brown and sending him text messages. The next morning, Brown responded to the text messages as follows:

My side of the story? They let their destructive brats run unsupervised. When you call them on it, you’re a racist, white devil etc. I’m not getting ripped off.
like last time where CSPD protected the TSA crooks. Maketa made a mistake. Post 198 EPSO 205.1 don’t charged for defending myself. I feared for my life. I want my attorney, lawyer up. Or Balls to the, drop the hammer. Your call.

Appellant’s App. at 88. 3 Officers texted back, “Ron we need to work through this. I will come to you with one officer and your lawyer. Call me at 499-1999.” Id. Brown didn’t respond.

After they left Brown’s townhome, the officers kept investigating. Among other things, they learned that Brown had served in the military and that he was heavily armed and potentially dangerous. Officers obtained an incident report from two years earlier, revealing that Brown, a former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employee, had threatened his fellow TSA employees at the Colorado Springs Airport. Officers learned that at the time of the TSA investigation Brown had lawfully owned seven firearms. But the officers also learned that the TSA-related threats had amounted to a misdemeanor and that Brown had no criminal history.

On May 28, the next day, officers returned to Brown’s townhome. During this time, they talked to Lucy Boyer, the upstairs occupant of Brown’s townhome. Ms. Boyer told the officers that Brown suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Ms. Boyer also said that Brown goes into “war mode,” which she compared to the conduct depicted in the movie Blackhawk Down, and said that there would be a “blood bath” 4 if any officers tried to enter the townhome. Id. at 92.

Officers also spoke with Brown’s ex-girlfriend, Mary Hankins. Ms. Hankins told the officers that Brown had PTSD and anxiety disorders and that he kept a lot of guns in his townhome. She also said that “police should not attempt to enter his residence and arrest him because he did not like police.” Id.

Next, officers talked to Brown’s mother, Pauline Brown. Ms. Brown told the officers that her son had served twenty years in the Army, had PTSD, and suffered from an anxiety disorder. Ms. Brown said that she had exchanged text messages with her son after the incident. Though she did not say whether Brown had been drinking on May 27 or 28, she did say that at some unspecified time he had started drinking heavily.

On May 28, officers obtained a warrant for Brown’s arrest.

B. The Day of the Arrest

On May 29, two days after Brown’s altercation with his neighbor, officers talked to the attorney who had represented Brown in the TSA incident, and again talked to Ms. Brown. Brown’s attorney said that he had tried calling Brown after Brown’s mother called him but that his calls went to Brown’s voicemail. Ms. Brown said that she had sent her son a text message at 9:30 a.m. asking him to surrender, but that Brown had responded with a “concerning” message saying that he could not live with his neighbors intimidating him. Id. at 122-23. Ms. Brown also gave officers the name of Brown’s friend, Brian Sheridan.

At 2:59 p.m., officers called and talked to Lucy Boyer again. Ms.

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709 F. App'x 906, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-city-of-colorado-springs-ca10-2017.