Body Cam Evidence Exonerates Police Use of Deadly Force
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The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a recent decision in favor of law enforcement in Mendez v. City of Chicago, et al., No. 24-3110. The decision arose from a police shooting in the early morning hours of May 26, 2018. While it was still dark, two Chicago police officers responded to a radio alert of a shot fired around 5235 West Ohio Street. Within minutes of receiving the call, the police arrived on scene and observed Mendez on a nearby porch. As the officers approached Mendez, he stood up, jumped off the porch and over a fence, and began running down an alleyway. The two officers gave chase.
According to police body camera footage, the officer closest to Mendez yelled, “Waistband,” “Waistband,” “Waistband,” “Keep your hands up,” and then shouted, “He’s got it in his hand.” Mendez then fell to the ground, got up, and looked back at the officers. As he did so, Mendez’s right arm swung toward the officers with an object in his right hand, which the officers believed to be a gun. One of the officers made a split-second decision to shoot Mendez to stop the threat, resulting in permanent injuries. Mendez filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court found no Fourth Amendment violation based on a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis and granted summary judgment in favor of the police.
On appeal, the Seventh Circuit took a careful, independent look at the body camera footage of the shooting and concluded that the shooting was justified based on the totality of the circumstances known to the officers at the time of the shooting. Relying on U.S. Supreme Court precedent in Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985), the Seventh Circuit held that the police had probable cause to believe that Mendez posed a threat of serious physical harm to the officers, and, therefore, the use of deadly force was not unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
For more information about this article, contact Tressler attorney Darcy L. Proctor at dproctor@tresslerllp.com.
Darcy L. Proctor is a partner in Tressler’s Local Government Practice Group. Darcy concentrates her practice in the defense of local governments in all aspects of tort, civil rights liability, and employment litigation. She also defends private sector employers across a variety of employment law issues. Click here to read Darcy’s full attorney bio.