John Sawyer v. City of Soddy Daisy, Tenn.

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: February 7, 2023
• Docket: 22-5568
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 23a0077n.06

No. 22-5568

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED ) Feb 07, 2023 JOHN SAWYER, as Next of Kin of Jack Sawyer, ) DEBORAH S. HUNT, Clerk deceased, ) Plaintiff-Appellant, ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE v. ) UNITED STATES DISTRICT ) COURT FOR THE EASTERN CITY OF SODDY DAISY, TENNESSEE; ) DISTRICT OF TENNESSEE MATTHEW THOMAS, ERIC JENKINS, and ERIC ) HINDMON, in their individual and official ) OPINION capacities, ) Defendants-Appellees. ) ) )

BEFORE: GRIFFIN, WHITE, and THAPAR, Circuit Judges.

GRIFFIN, Circuit Judge.

Jack Sawyer, who suffered from dementia, lived with his girlfriend. One night, he pointed

a gun at her from close range, prompting her to flee and call the police. She asked them to check

on him, explaining that she had previously removed bullets from the gun. Three officers went to

the house to check on Jack, and two of them found him in his bedroom. When they entered the

room, Jack stood up, pointed the gun at them, and did not drop it when told to do so. One of the

officers shot and killed Jack. The estate sued defendants, asserting various federal and state-law

claims arising out of Jack’s death. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of

defendants, concluding that the officer’s use of force was reasonable under the circumstances. We

affirm. No. 22-5568, Sawyer v. City of Soddy Daisy

I.

Jack and his girlfriend, Patti Grimm, lived together in Grimm’s house. He had dementia

and Alzheimer’s. To protect him and others, Grimm removed all the guns from the home save a

pistol that she had unloaded. After doing so, Grimm did not see the pistol again until the night of

Jack’s death, about two months later.

On September 19, 2019, Jack grew frustrated with the TV and pointed the gun at Grimm

from about three feet away. She fled to her daughter and son-in-law’s house. Once there, Grimm

called the police and asked them to perform a wellness check on him.

Defendant police officers Eric Jenkins, Matthew Thomas, and Eric Hindmon responded.

Grimm and her son-in-law informed the officers of Jack’s diagnoses, his pointing of the gun,

Grimm’s fear of returning home, and the removal of the guns and bullets. When asked if Grimm

removed all the bullets from the gun, Grimm’s son-in-law said “she says” with voice inflection

that made him sound skeptical. So the officers proceeded to Grimm’s house.

The officers attempted to contact Jack at the front of the house and by having dispatch call

him. After a few minutes without response, Grimm gave them access to her house. They entered

with their guns drawn while calling out Jack’s name and announcing themselves as police.

During their sweep of the house, Officers Thomas and Jenkins approached a closed door.

Thomas opened the door, revealing a short hallway leading to Jack’s bed. Jack was sitting on his

bed with his back to Thomas and Jenkins in a dimly lit room. Without identifying himself as a

police officer, Thomas approached the bed and again called Jack’s name. Jack responded by

standing up, turning to his right towards the officers, and raising his right hand holding a gun from

the left of his lap up and across his body in the officers’ direction. One of the officers shouted

“put it down” as Jack stood up, but Jack did not drop the gun. Jenkins fatally shot Jack eight

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seconds after Thomas entered the bedroom and only two seconds after Jack stood up. Jack was

found wearing a sleep mask, and his pistol was cocked, but unloaded.

On behalf of Jack’s estate, his son, John Sawyer, sued the officers and the City of Soddy

Daisy, alleging various Fourth Amendment and Tennessee state-law claims. The district court

granted summary judgment in favor of all defendants, concluding they were entitled to qualified

immunity (and immunity under Tennessee law) because Officer Jenkins acted reasonably when he

shot Jack, and the estate’s claims against the other defendants all relied on Jenkins using excessive

force. Plaintiff appeals, addressing only his Fourth Amendment claims.

II.

The dispositive issue in this case is whether Officer Jenkins is entitled to qualified

immunity regarding the Fourth Amendment unreasonable seizure claim, as all of the estate’s other

claims flow from that underlying alleged constitutional violation. Qualified immunity shields

public officials “from undue interference with their duties and from potentially disabling threats

of liability.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 806 (1982). It is not a “mere defense to liability”;

the doctrine provides “immunity from suit.” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985). This

immunity “gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments

about open legal questions,” “protect[ing] all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly

violate the law.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 743 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted).

A “plaintiff bears the burden of showing that a defendant is not entitled to qualified immunity.”

Bletz v. Gribble, 641 F.3d 743, 750 (6th Cir. 2011). With this burden in mind, “a defendant is

entitled to qualified immunity on summary judgment unless the facts, when viewed in the light

most favorable to the plaintiff, would permit a reasonable juror to find that: (1) the defendant

violated a constitutional right; and (2) the right was clearly established.” Williams v. Maurer,

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9 F.4th 416, 430 (6th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted). The district court concluded

plaintiff failed to demonstrate a violation of a constitutional right, and we review that decision

de novo. Sutton v. Metro. Gov’t of Nashville & Davidson Cnty., 700 F.3d 865, 871 (6th Cir. 2012).

“[A]pprehension by the use of deadly force is a seizure subject to the reasonableness

requirement of the Fourth Amendment.” Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 7 (1983). “Determining

whether the force used to effect a particular seizure is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment

requires a careful balancing of the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth

Amendment interests against the countervailing governmental interests at stake.” Graham v.

Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Police officers routinely

face ‘tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving’ situations that force split-second judgments about the

degree of force required”; we account for this by “evaluat[ing] the force used through the eyes of

a reasonable officer at the scene, not with ‘the 20/20 vision of hindsight.’” Reich v. City of

Elizabethtown, 945 F.3d 968, 978 (6th Cir. 2019) (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396–97).

Garner’s “probable cause” standard governs whether an officer who uses deadly force

violates the Fourth Amendment—an officer acts reasonably when deploying deadly force if “the

officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either

to the officer or to others.” 471 U.S. at 11. This objective test requires courts to judge the use of

force from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, “in light of the facts and

circumstances confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation.”

Graham, 490 U.S. at 397. And we must apply a segmented approach to the analysis: we evaluate

the “split-second judgments made immediately before the officer used allegedly excessive force.”

Livermore ex rel. Rohm v. Lubelan, 476 F.3d 397, 407 (6th Cir. 2007) (internal quotation marks

omitted). Discarded from this analytical overlay, then, is any “poor planning or bad tactics that

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might have created the circumstances that led to the use of force.” Reich, 945 F.3d at 978 (internal

quotation marks omitted). Additionally, “[t]he Fourth Amendment only requires officers to act

reasonably on the information they have; it does not require them to perceive a situation

accurately.” Thomas v. City of Columbus, 854 F.3d 361, 365 (6th Cir. 2017).

The Supreme Court has identified three non-exclusive factors that lower courts should

consider in determining the reasonableness of force used: “(1) the severity of the crime at issue;

(2) whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to the safety of the police officers or others; and

[(3)] whether the suspect actively resisted arrest or attempted to evade arrest by flight.” Livermore,

476 F.3d at 404. Here, the claim turns on the threat factor.

The threat factor is “a minimum requirement for the use of deadly force,” meaning deadly

force “may be used only if the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat

of severe physical harm.” Untalan v. City of Lorain, 430 F.3d 312, 314 (6th Cir. 2005). Because

the “mere possession of a weapon is not sufficient to justify the use of deadly force,” we require

“additional indicia that the safety of the officer or others is at risk.” Campbell v. Cheatham Cnty.

Sheriff’s Dep’t, 47 F. 4th 468, 480 (6th Cir. 2022). This “often turn[s] on whether an armed suspect

pointed her weapon at another person.” Hicks v. Scott, 958 F.3d 421, 435 (6th Cir. 2020). We

recently summarized our caselaw as follows: “[W]e have found that officers had the probable

cause that made their shooting lawful when they could reasonably conclude that a suspect might

fire a gun at them or use another dangerous weapon against them (even if they turned out to be

wrong).” Gambrel v. Knox Cnty., 25 F.4th 391, 405–06 (6th Cir. 2022) (collecting cases).

The estate admits that Jack had a gun when he was shot, and the officers’ bodycams show

Jack pointed the gun—despite instructions to drop it—at Thomas and Jenkins immediately before

he was shot. When an individual “stops following officer commands and instead grabs a readily

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accessible firearm, an officer need not wait for the suspect to open fire on him before the officer

may fire back.” Jordan v. Howard, 987 F.3d 537, 544 (6th Cir. 2021) (alterations and internal

quotation marks omitted). Jenkins thus had “probable cause to believe that [Jack] pose[d] a threat

of serious physical harm, either to” Jenkins or Thomas. Garner, 471 U.S. at 11.

That the gun was ultimately found to have been unloaded is of no moment. Jenkins was

not required to risk his life and Thomas’s life on the untested assumption that Jack had not reloaded

the gun in the two months since Grimm unloaded it, nor was he presented with an opportunity to

confirm whether Jack had done so. Indeed, Officer Jenkins knew of Grimm’s son-in-law’s

skeptical response to Grimm’s statement about unloading the gun, as well as Grimm’s reaction to

Jack’s pointing the gun at her, suggesting she too thought the gun posed a serious threat. It was

not unreasonable for Jenkins to view the gun in the same way, even if it turned out afterwards that

he was wrong. See Gambrel, 25 F.4th at 405 (“In countless cases applying this test, we have found

that officers had the probable cause that made their shooting lawful when they could reasonably

conclude that a suspect might fire a gun at them or use another dangerous weapon against them

(even if they turned out to be wrong).”) (collecting cases); see also Thomas, 854 F.3d at 365–67

(officer did not violate decedent’s constitutional rights by using deadly force against decedent

running towards the officer while holding an unloaded gun).

Nor does Jack’s mental-health status render Jenkins’ use of force unreasonable here. The

Graham factors do not readily apply to cases involving mental-health emergencies so we consider

additional factors in such situations. Puskas v. Delaware Cnty., 56 F.4th 1088, 1097–98 (6th Cir.

2023); Palma v. Johns, 27 F.4th 419, 429 (6th Cir. 2022). These additional factors include

“(1) whether the person was experiencing a mental health or medical emergency, and whether that

emergency created an immediate threat of serious harm to themselves or others; (2) whether some

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degree of force was reasonably necessary to ameliorate the immediate threat; and (3) whether the

force used was more than reasonably necessary under the circumstances.” Palma, 27 F.4th at 429

(alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). Viewing the evidence in the light most

favorable to the Estate, Jack was experiencing a mental-health emergency because of his dementia

and Alzheimer’s diagnoses, as well as his unusual actions leading to him aiming the gun at Grimm.

That said, the second and third Palma factors support Jenkins’s use of force because Jack pointed

a gun at Jenkins and Thomas from only a few feet away. This action posed an immediate threat

that nondeadly force might not have prevented. It is true that deadly force is permissible against

mentally ill individuals “only in extreme cases.” Id. at 437. But Jenkins was confronted with an

extreme situation. He was searching a house for an individual who had pointed a gun at his

girlfriend. Then, when Jenkins entered the bedroom, Jack stood up, turned, and pointed his gun at

Jenkins and Thomas. The situation was undoubtedly “tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving” in

the moments after Thomas and Jenkins entered Jack’s bedroom. See Puskas, 56 F.4th at 1098

(citation omitted). In the end, Jenkins’s use of deadly force was reasonable regardless of Jack’s

mental health because Jack pointed a gun at Jenkins and Thomas from mere feet away.

Finally, plaintiff asserts that the officers did not obtain true consent to enter Grimm’s house

because they did not tell Grimm that they intended to arrest Jack. Even if this were true and

established a Fourth Amendment violation, it cannot factor into the deadly-force analysis. See id.

at 1097. Whether the use of deadly force was reasonable is “based on an objective assessment of

the danger a suspect pose[d] at that moment,” so an officer can still be entitled to qualified

immunity even if he “create[d] the circumstances” under which he used deadly force. Id. (internal

quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, whether Jenkins violated the Fourth Amendment when

entering the home plays no part in our analysis.

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Given this, the district court correctly concluded that Officer Jenkins did not use excessive

force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Because the district court correctly held that Jenkins

did not violate Jack’s constitutional rights, it also properly granted summary judgment in favor of

Thomas and Hindmon for not stopping the use of force and in favor of the City on the Estate’s

Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978) claim. See,

e.g., Pineda v. Hamilton Cnty., Ohio, 977 F.3d 483, 490 (6th Cir. 2020); Thomas, 854 F.3d at 367.

III.

For these reasons, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

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