# Byonca Logan v. City of Mobile

> Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit · April 17, 2025

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10847135

## Case

- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
- **Decided:** April 17, 2025
- **Precedential status:** Unpublished
- **Opinion:** Opinion
- **Nature of suit:** NEW
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

USCA11 Case: 24-11365 Document: 36-1 Date Filed: 04/17/2025 Page: 1 of 15

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 24-11365
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________

BYONCA LOGAN,
Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
versus

MICHAEL ISRAEL,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Alabama
D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cv-00237-KD-MU
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2 Opinion of the Court 24-11365

____________________

Before JILL PRYOR, BRASHER, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Byonca Logan appeals the district court’s grant of Defend-
ant Micah Israel’s1 motion for summary judgment in her excessive
force and false arrest suit against him. On appeal she argues that
the district court erred when it held that Oﬃcer Israel was entitled
to qualiﬁed immunity on both of her claims.
I. FACTS
The district court set forth the pertinent facts:
[On] November 27, 2021, . . . Ms. Logan went
to downtown Mobile to meet up with friends and
watch the Iron Bowl. After the game, she eventually
met a friend at the Lit Cigar Lounge on Dauphin
Street before heading home to change. Ms. Logan re-
turned to the Lit Cigar Lounge around 9:00 p.m. to
meet up with diﬀerent friends and was drinking alco-
hol. The bar was crowded, and Ms. Logan got pushed
into a woman who was not pleased about being
pushed. According to Ms. Logan, the woman was
“hung up” on being pushed, which “kind of threw the

1 Officer Israel was improperly named Michael in the complaint.
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24-11365 Opinion of the Court 3

energy oﬀ in there.” Subsequently, Logan and her
friends decided to leave Lit Cigar Lounge for Lure, a
bar farther east on Dauphin Street. Walking out, the
woman into whom Ms. Logan was pushed threw a
drink at Logan and her friends, which prompted hol-
lering and cursing between the woman and Logan’s
friends. Unbeknownst to Logan and her friends, a
separate group of unknown women were waiting
outside of the Lit Cigar Lounge, one of whom
sprayed mace or pepper spray into Logan’s face. “And
from there, I mean, a ﬁght occurred.” Ms. Logan does
not dispute that she was involved in this ﬁght, and
that “she was throwing and taking punches with at
least two diﬀerent women.” Bystander video footage
indicates that Logan, a woman with long, brown hair
wearing a brown and white outﬁt, was ﬁghting sev-
eral diﬀerent women. Logan can be seen trading
punches with a woman in a red shirt as they both hit
the ground and got back up. After a woman in a white
sweater tried to grab Logan’s wrist, Logan hit her sev-
eral times, and a woman with long, orange hair wear-
ing a blue hat joined the other in ﬁghting oﬀ Logan.
Logan was then pitted against the wall of one of the
buildings on Dauphin Street before again hitting the
ground, all the while trading kicks, shoves, and slaps
with numerous others. Meanwhile, a crowd gathered
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4 Opinion of the Court 24-11365

around can be seen watching, jeering, and ﬁlming as
the scuﬄe takes place.
C. Ms. Logan’s Arrest and the Complained-Of Injury
According to Oﬃcer Israel, given the “hectic”
nature of the club scene following the Iron Bowl, he
was stationed in the area of Dauphin Street and
North Jackson Street that same night. Oﬃcer Israel
supposedly saw a crowd of people running over to a
ﬁght involving women. Per Oﬃcer Israel, he and his
supervisor, Oﬃcer Byrd, walked up to the altercation
in which Ms. Logan and other women, including Al-
lenson Ingram, were “scuﬄing around,” with “blows
on both sides still being thrown.” Body-worn camera
(BWC) footage from Sergeant Gibbs, and Oﬃcer
Byrd, conﬁrms that the police oﬃcers, including Of-
ﬁcer Israel, a black male with short hair, approached
what looks like the mostly ﬁnished Dauphin Street
confrontation. Logan can be seen facing the woman
with long, orange hair as that woman was pinned up
against the wall of a building. Logan can also be seen
in Oﬃcer Israel’s BWC footage. Suddenly, Ingram
and the woman with long, orange hair started slap-
ping each other and Ingram can be seen pulling her
hair before the oﬃcers broke up the ﬁght and hand-
cuﬀed Ingram.
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24-11365 Opinion of the Court 5

Oﬃcer Israel asserted in his deposition that Ms.
Logan was still trying to ﬁght with Ingram while In-
gram and the lady with orange hair were tussling. Lo-
gan disputes that she attempted to engage in this
ﬁght, the “insinuation” that she subsequently struck
Oﬃcer Israel with her right arm, and that her arm
came down on Oﬃcer Israel. Meanwhile, Sergeant
Gibbs’ BWC footage shows Logan’s leg touching In-
gram, who was on the ground being handcuﬀed, and
Logan’s arm reaching for Ingram and then touching
Oﬃcer Israel, who was assisting with Ingram’s arrest.
Bystander video conﬁrms that Logan reached for In-
gram while Sergeant Gibbs and Oﬃcer Israel were in
the process of restraining Ingram, and that Sergeant
Gibbs shoved Logan backward before she tried to
walk away. Plaintiﬀ does not dispute that she was
shoved. Oﬃcer Israel can then be seen beelining to-
wards Logan. According to Oﬃcer Israel, he knew
that Logan was attempting to reach Ingram and in so
doing, Ms. Logan hit him with a ﬁst. After conﬁrming
with Sergeant Gibbs that Gibbs was able to complete
handcuﬃng Ingram, Oﬃcer Israel went to detain Ms.
Logan. He directed her to a building on the south side
of Dauphin Street to keep her separated.
At that point, Oﬃcer Israel grabbed Ms. Lo-
gan’s right arm with his right arm before pushing her
against the wall of a building. Oﬃcer Israel can be
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6 Opinion of the Court 24-11365

heard telling the crowd to “back up” and “move.” Af-
ter the video brieﬂy pans away, Ms. Logan can then
be seen facing Oﬃcer Israel. Oﬃcer Israel held Lo-
gan’s right wrist with his left hand and had his right
arm on her right shoulder. Oﬃcer Israel then at-
tempted to spin Logan around to again face the wall
by pushing her right arm behind her with his left hand
while moving her body in the same direction with his
right arm. They both spun around before Oﬃcer Is-
rael ﬁnally had Logan against the wall again. Logan
then placed both hands behind her back. Oﬃcer Byrd
then entered the scene and handcuﬀed Logan while
Oﬃcer Israel backed away. On Oﬃcer Byrd’s BWC
footage, Logan can be heard telling Oﬃcer Israel,
“I’m not ﬁghting you!” She repeated to Oﬃcer Byrd
that she was not ﬁghting Oﬃcer Israel while Oﬃcer
Byrd was handcuﬃng her.
Ms. Logan “does not dispute the objective
physical actions that are depicted” in the bystander
video. She stated in her deposition that she ap-
proached the oﬃcers handcuﬃng Ingram to try to
“clear” one of her friends of wrongdoing to the oﬃc-
ers but then Oﬃcer Israel saw her, who “grabbed
[her] from the back. She remembered being “pulled,
twisted, thrown.” Ms. Logan also testiﬁed that she did
not resist Oﬃcer’s Israel’s attempt to arrest her, that
Oﬃcer Israel “knew who [she] was” during the arrest,
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24-11365 Opinion of the Court 7

and that when she asked him why he was arresting
her, he told her, “Shut the fuck up, you just hit me.”
Oﬃcer Israel, on the other hand, testiﬁed that he gave
her verbal commands to turn around and stop mov-
ing but that she failed to comply. He explained that he
was attempting to put handcuﬀs on her but did not
because she “kept turning around” and “kept not
complying.” Oﬃcer Israel disputed that he recog-
nized Ms. Logan at the time he attempted to handcuﬀ
her. (“If I would have seen her probably more than
that, yeah, but at that time I still had a job to do.”).
Once in handcuﬀs, Ms. Logan told Oﬃcer
Byrd, “I really think my shoulder’s broke.” ( “I really
think my arm’s broke.” Oﬃcer Byrd can be heard call-
ing EMS for her.
Dist. Ct. Doc. 43 at 2-6 (internal citations omitted).
Logan brought suit against Oﬃcer Israel and the City of Mo-
bile for false arrest and excessive force. The district court granted
summary judgment to the City and Logan does not appeal that rul-
ing. The district court also granted summary judgment to Oﬃcer
Israel on the excessive force and false arrest claims on qualiﬁed im-
munity grounds.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
“We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de
novo, viewing all the evidence, and drawing all reasonable factual
inferences, in favor of the nonmoving party.” Richmond v. Badia, 47
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8 Opinion of the Court 24-11365

F.4th 1172, 1179 (11th Cir. 2022). “A grant of summary judgment
is proper if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to
any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter
of law.” Id. Although we must view the facts in favor of the non-
moving party, we accept video evidence over the nonmoving
party’s account when the former obviously contradicts the latter.
See Pourmoghani-Esfahani v. Gee, 625 F.3d 1313, 1315 (11th Cir. 2010).
III. DISCUSSION
Qualiﬁed immunity protects government oﬃcials perform-
ing discretionary functions “from liability for civil damages insofar
as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or
constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have
known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Oﬃcers have
“the burden to establish that they were acting within their discre-
tionary authority” when raising qualiﬁed immunity as a defense.
Ingram v. Kubik, 30 F.4th 1241, 1250 (11th Cir. 2022). If the oﬃcers
satisfy that burden, then the burden shifts to the plaintiﬀ to estab-
lish that (1) “the defendant violated a constitutional right,” and (2)
“the violation was clearly established.” Christmas v. Harris Cnty, 51
F.4th 1348, 1354 (11th Cir. 2022) (quotation marks omitted).
We have stated:
There are three recognized ways to show that a law is
“clearly established.” First, a plaintiﬀ may show that a
“materially similar case has already been decided,”
whose facts are similar enough to give the police no-
tice. See Keating v. City of Miami, 598 F.3d 753, 766
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24-11365 Opinion of the Court 9

(11th Cir. 2010). Second, he may show that a
“broader, clearly established principle should control
the novel facts” of his case. Id. This “broader” princi-
ple may be derived from “general statements of the
law contained within the Constitution, statute, or
caselaw.” Mercado v. City of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152,
1159 (11th Cir. 2005) (alteration adopted) . . . (quoting
Willingham v. Loughnan, 321 F.3d 1299, 1301 (11th Cir.
2003)). Finally, a plaintiﬀ may show that the oﬃcer’s
conduct “so obviously violates [the] constitution that
prior case law is unnecessary.” Keating, 598 F.3d at 766
(quoting Mercado, 407 F.3d at 1159). While we must
be mindful of the “speciﬁc context of the case,” we
“do[ ] not require a case directly on point for a right
to be clearly established.” Rivas-Villegas v. Cortesluna,
595 U.S. 1, 142 S. Ct. 4, 7–8, 211 L.Ed.2d 164 (2021)
(per curiam).
Edger v. McCabe, 84 F.4th 1230, 1235 (11th Cir. 2023). To determine
whether a right was clearly established, we look to the decisions of
the United States Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, and the the
highest court of the relevant state. See Barnes v. Zaccari, 669 F.3d
1295, 1307 (11th Cir. 2012).
A. False Arrest
The Fourth Amendment protects citizens “against unrea-
sonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. “[A]n arrest
is a ‘seizure’ of the person” under the Fourth Amendment. Case v.
Eslinger, 555 F.3d 1317, 1326 n.10 (11th Cir. 2009). Whether a sei-
zure is reasonable hinges on the presence of probable cause. See id.
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10 Opinion of the Court 24-11365

at 1326. “[P]robable cause exists where a reasonable oﬃcer could
conclude—considering all of the surrounding circumstances, in-
cluding the plausibility of the explanation itself—that there was a
‘substantial chance of criminal activity.” Edger, 84 F.4th at 1236 (in-
ternal quotations removed)(quoting D.C. v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 61
(2018)). Probable cause “is not a high bar,” and “‘requires only a
probability or substantial chance of criminal activity, not an actual
showing of such activity.’” Paez v. Mulvey, 915 F.3d 1276, 1286 (quot-
ing Wesby, 583 U.S. at 57). It is a “ﬂexible and ﬂuid concept” that
focuses on the “totality of the circumstances.” Id. at 1286. “In the
false arrest context, arguable probable cause exists where a reason-
able oﬃcer, looking at the entire legal landscape at the time of the
arrests, could have interpreted the law as permitting the arrests.”
Edger, 84 F.4th at 1236-37 )(internal quotations removed)(quoting
Garcia v. Casey, 75 F.4th 1176, 1186 (11th Cir. 2023)).
The district court did not err when it granted Oﬃcer Israel
qualiﬁed immunity for the false arrest charge. Although Logan is
correct that Oﬃcer Israel appears not to have observed her—based
on his body cam footage and the timing of his arrival on the
scene—engage in any criminal activity with respect to the initial
ﬁght, he did observe her when she attempted to ﬁght with the
woman he was arresting. The body cam footage shows her at-
tempt to strike the woman being arrested and in doing so, she
brushed against Oﬃcer Israel. It was at that point that Oﬃcer Is-
rael turned around to address the person whose arm was attempt-
ing to strike the arrestee, saw Logan (who had retreated), and ar-
rested her. Given that Oﬃcer Israel had already seen the ﬁght
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24-11365 Opinion of the Court 11

resume in a similar way when the arrestee went after another
woman, he assessed the surrounding circumstances and surmised
that Logan was attempting to resume the ﬁght herself with the ar-
restee. Thus, given the circumstances and what he saw, Oﬃcer Is-
rael had arguable probable cause to arrest Logan for either disor-
derly conduct2 or harassment. 3
B. Excessive Force
We assess excessive force claims in the context of an arrest
under the Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness standard.
Richmond, 47 F.4th at 1182. In doing so, we “balance the nature and
quality of the intrusion on the individual against the government
justiﬁcation for using force.” Id. “[W]e consider: (1) the severity of

2 Under Alabama law,

(a) A person commits the crime of disorderly conduct if, with
intent to cause public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm, or
recklessly creating a risk thereof, he or she does any of the fol-
lowing:
(1) Engages in fighting or in violent tumultuous or threat-
ening behavior.
Ala. Code § 13A-11-7(a)(1).
3 Under Alabama law,

A person commits the crime of harassment if, with intent to
harass, annoy, or alarm another person, he or she either:
a. Strikes, shoves, kicks, or otherwise touches a person or
subjects him or her to physical contact.
Ala. Code § 13A-11-8(a)(1)(a).
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12 Opinion of the Court 24-11365

the crime at issue, (2) whether the suspect poses an immediate
threat to the safety of the oﬃcers or others, and (3) whether the
suspect is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by
ﬂight.” Id. Additionally, we will consider “the justiﬁcation for the
application of force, the relationship between the justiﬁcation and
the amount of force used, and the extent of any injury inﬂicted.”
Id. (citing Saunders v. Duke, 766 F.3d 1262, 1267 (11th Cir. 2014)).
“The ‘reasonableness’ of a particular use of force must be judged
from the perspective of a reasonable oﬃcer on the scene, rather
than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S.
386, 396 (1989).
The district court, in granting qualiﬁed immunity to Oﬃcer
Israel, ﬁrst concluded that a reasonable oﬃcer at the scene would
have concluded that “force would be necessary to restrain an indi-
vidual trying to interfere with another brawler’s arrest.” Dist. Ct.
Doc. 43 at 18. The court found it reasonable also for Oﬃcer Israel
to have inferred that Logan posed an immediate threat to the oﬃc-
ers’ safety. Id. The court further noted that bystander video
showed that Oﬃcer Israel used “a permissible ‘soft hands’
takedown maneuver after Logan ﬂipped from facing the wall.” Id.
at 19. Finally, the court observed that the fact Logan was unre-
strained distinguishes this case from the Eleventh Circuit cases that
have held an oﬃcer’s force was gratuitous and thus concluded that
Oﬃcer Israel did not use excessive force. Id. at 19-20.
Logan argues that Oﬃcer Israel applied excessive force when
he handcuﬀed her and broke her arm in the process. She asserts
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24-11365 Opinion of the Court 13

that she did not resist arrest, her purported crime was not severe,
she did not pose an immediate threat, there was no need for the
use of force, and her injury was severe. All of these factors, she
argues, lead to the conclusion that the force employed by Oﬃcer
Israel was disproportionate and excessive.
We conclude that Oﬃcer Israel probably did not use exces-
sive force when he handcuﬀed Logan. In this determination, we
are aided by videos from bystanders and the oﬃcers’ body cams.
These videos show that the oﬃcers arrived on the scene of a re-
cently dispersed street ﬁght between two groups of women in the
entertainment district of Mobile, Alabama. Even though it was af-
ter midnight, there were many people milling around the area. As
the oﬃcers approached the scene, one of the brawlers attacked an-
other woman. The oﬃcers immediately separated the two women
and began to handcuﬀ the instigator. While the oﬃcers were at-
tempting to handcuﬀ the instigator, several people interfered with
the process and would not clear away; in short, the scene was cha-
otic. As the instigator was being handcuﬀed and was on the
ground, it reasonably appeared to Oﬃcer Israel that Logan at-
tempted to reach past two of the oﬃcers to attack the instigator.
One of the oﬃcers pushed Logan away. At this point, Oﬃcer Israel
left the other oﬃcers to pursue and arrest Logan. He grabbed her
arm and led her to the wall, so that she was facing it with Oﬃcer
Israel holding her arms behind her. During this time, Logan is seen
talking to Oﬃcer Israel over her shoulder, although the video did
not record what she was saying. The video resumes a few seconds
later with Logan now facing Oﬃcer Israel, again speaking to him.
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14 Opinion of the Court 24-11365

At this point he pulled her arm up and spun her around to face the
wall so that he could handcuﬀ her, which he then did successfully
as she then provided no resistance.
Under the circumstances that Oﬃcer Israel faced, his use of
force probably was permissible. The oﬃcers encountered a volatile
scene with brawlers re-engaging in ﬁghts even with the police pre-
sent. Logan even went so far as to try to attack a woman on the
ground whom the oﬃcers were trying to handcuﬀ. The extent of
Logan’s resistance to Oﬃce Israel’s attempt to arrest her—after he
had gotten her to the wall and was holding her hands behind her
back, readying to handcuﬀ her—is unclear because the video
panned away before returning a few seconds later to reveal her
standing against the wall, facing the oﬃcer with her hands in front
of her. However, what the video does show is that she not being
compliant. Given what he had observed of her behavior and the
actions of the bystanders, Oﬃcer Israel was entitled to use force to
handcuﬀ one of the sources of the volatility. As the Supreme
Court has noted, police oﬃcers are called upon to make quick judg-
ments “‘in circumstances that are tense, uncertain, and rapidly-
evolving.’” Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389, 399 (2015) (quoting
Graham v Connor, 490 U.S. at 397 (1989). Oﬃcer Israel did not hit,
punch or kick Logan; he did not have assistance from other oﬃc-
ers; he did not use a weapon; or bring her to the ground. His ac-
tions were not quick or forceful; rather, he used the soft hands tech-
nique to bring her into the position to handcuﬀ her. Given the en-
vironment he was acting in and the actions of both Logan and the
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24-11365 Opinion of the Court 15

crowd, the amount of force Oﬃcer Israel used probably was rea-
sonable.
In the preceding two paragraphs, we said that Oﬃcer Israel’s
actions were probably permissible and probably reasonable and
probably did not constitute the use of excessive force. However,
we need not decide that question, because it is very clear that his
actions did not violate clearly established law. There is no materi-
ally similar case that would have put a reasonable oﬃcer on notice
that such actions violated clearly established law. And there is no
obvious clarity—either from case law or broader clearly established
principles—that made it obvious to all reasonable government ac-
tors in Oﬃcer Israels’ shoes that what he was doing violated federal
law. Accordingly, it is clear that Oﬃcer Israel is entitled to qualiﬁed
immunity.
For the foregoing reasons, the decision of the district court
is
AFFIRMED.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10847135. Public record. Not legal advice.