Opinion

Tammy Watkins v. Officer Lawrence Davis

Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Filed: Sep 25, 2025
Status: Published
Nature of suit: NEW
Cited by: 0 cases

The opinion

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FOR PUBLICATION

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-13616

____________________

TAMMY WATKINS,

Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,

versus

OFFICER LAWRENCE DAVIS,

OFFICER JOSHUA FAULKER,

individually and in their oﬃcial capacities as

oﬃcers of the Henry County Police Department;

Defendants-Appellants,

HENRY COUNTY, GEORGIA,

by way of Henry County Police Department, et al.,

Defendants.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Georgia

D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cv-04081-AT

____________________

Before ROSENBAUM, LAGOA, and WILSON, Circuit Judges.

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2 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge:

An old saying observes that “the single biggest problem in

communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” That was

certainly the issue here. And in this case, that problem resulted in

a near-tragedy.

On a Saturday evening in the height of the pandemic,

Tammy Watkins received a work call. The hospital had just dis-

charged a COVID patient. He needed an oxygen concentrator,

tanks, and supplies. And she was supposed to supply it.

So Watkins drove to work to collect the equipment. She

worked at a business at the bottom of a hill, located oﬀ a cul de sac.

Because it was Saturday and the cul de sac housed businesses, no

one else was around—including at Watkins’s employer. Watkins

backed her car up to the building and loaded it. When she was

done, she got into her car, looked up the patient’s address, and

started to drive up the driveway.

As Watkins drove up the driveway, out of the dark, she sud-

denly saw two ﬂashlights coming down the driveway towards her.

Alone in a desolate place, she feared for her safety. She thought the

people approaching her were about to attack her. With only one

way out of her workplace parking lot, Watkins accelerated up the

driveway.

Then Watkins was sure her worst fears were being con-

ﬁrmed: the people approaching started shooting at Watkins. So

Watkins ducked down in her car, somehow navigated the driveway,

and turned to the right, away from the cul de sac.

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 3

To her great surprise, police cars were waiting there. Wat-

kins immediately stopped her car. The oﬃcers yelled for her to get

out. So Watkins did. Then the oﬃcers handcuﬀed her and put her

in the back of a police cruiser, where she sat for three or four hours

before the oﬃcers released her.

Watkins was lucky. Her car, which the oﬃcers shot four

times and totaled, was the only physical casualty. The shots did not

hit Watkins, and she was not physically harmed in any way.

Nor were the two people who approached Watkins. As it

turned out, they were police oﬃcers—Oﬃcers Joshua Faulkner

and Lawrence Davis. They were investigating a call about a possi-

ble truck break-in at a diﬀerent address in the cul de sac. But as

they descended upon Watkins, the oﬃcers never communicated

that they were police. And in the darkness, Watkins could not see

that they were.

Watkins sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She alleged that the

Oﬃcers violated her Fourth Amendment rights to be free from a

“[s]eizure of [p]erson and [u]nlawful [d]etention,” excessive force,

and property damage to her car. The district court denied the of-

ﬁcers summary judgment on qualiﬁed-immunity grounds on all

three claims. They appeal that order.

After careful consideration and with the beneﬁt of oral ar-

gument, we aﬃrm the district court’s order and remand for further

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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4 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

At around 6:45 p.m. on January 16, 2021, Henry County law

enforcement received a call that two people carrying ﬂashlights

were breaking into a black truck. The call reported that the truck

was next to a yellow drilling rig at 11 Bellamy Place in Stockbridge,

Georgia (“the dispatch location”). 11 Bellamy Place sits at the end

of a cul-de-sac of commercial buildings.

About 8 minutes after the call, Oﬃcers Davis and Faulkner

reached the dispatch location. Arriving after sundown, the pair

found a pitch-black scene. No streetlights lit the road or cul-de-sac.

Oﬃcers Davis and Faulkner approached with their sirens

and roof lights turned oﬀ, enveloped in the darkness. Then they

parked about 50 yards up the road from the cul-de-sac. They

planned to “sneak up on” any robbers.

After leaving their cars, the oﬃcers walked quietly to the dis-

patch location. They kept their ﬂashlights oﬀ.

Oﬃcer Faulkner reported seeing movement “next to the yel-

low rig” parked at the front of 11 Bellamy Place. About a minute

after sweeping the property, he also radioed that he heard voices

inside the building.

Over the next few minutes, Oﬃcers Chresha Harris and

Alan Yi each arrived separately. They too parked up the road from

the cul-de-sac with their sirens and roof lights oﬀ and quietly ap-

proached 11 Bellamy Place. There, they met Oﬃcers Faulkner and

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 5

Davis near the front of the property, where Faulkner repeated his

observations.

Suddenly, one of them whispered to turn oﬀ their ﬂash-

lights. Oﬃcer Faulkner pointed at a “hatchback” at a diﬀerent

property across the cul-de-sac—30 Bellamy Place. As the district

court explained, “[w]hen the cul-de-sac is viewed from above like a

clock face,” 11 Bellamy Place is located at the “one o’clock posi-

tion” while 30 Bellamy Place is at the “eight o’clock position,” di-

rectly left of the entry road. The two properties appear in the

photo below, with 11 Bellamy Place labeled “Original Dispatch Lo-

cation” and 30 Bellamy Place labeled “Suspicious Vehicle Loca-

tion”:

About a minute after pointing out the “hatchback,” Oﬃcer

Faulkner repeated that he had seen suspects at 11 Bellamy Place

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6 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

“between this black truck and that yellow rig.” No one disputes

that this “black truck” that matched the description from the 911

call was a separate car from the “hatchback” the oﬃcers saw across

the cul-de-sac at 30 Bellamy Place. At the time, Faulkner explained

that he did not see where the suspects had gone. But he later testi-

ﬁed he speculated they jumped the fence behind 11 Bellamy Place.

Oﬃce Faulkner then returned his attention to the “hatch-

back.” And he asked, “Where’s the hatchback at?” Suddenly, some-

thing piqued his interest, and he exclaimed, “What do we got over

there?”

In response, all four oﬃcers quickly moved towards 30 Bel-

lamy Place, the only well-lit property in the cul-de-sac. Oﬃcer

Faulkner said he saw a lone woman close the hatchback and then

get into the car.

Surveillance footage from 30 Bellamy Place shows that per-

son was Tammy Watkins, a woman who was then 47 years old.

Once inside her car, the headlights went on. For the next about

thirty seconds, the building’s surveillance video shows, Watkins sat

there in the car. Watkins later testiﬁed that she was looking up

directions to a COVID-19 patient to deliver medical equipment.

And the surveillance footage conﬁrms that she was looking at her

phone while she sat in the car.

During this period, Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis began to

walk down the downward-sloping driveway towards 30 Bellamy

Place and Watkins. Oﬃcers Harris and Yi stayed behind.

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Some dispute exists over how visible Oﬃcers Faulkner and

Davis were in the driveway. On the one hand, a surveillance cam-

era (which was apparently designed to work in the dark) shows

brighter-than-natural footage, in which they are visible. The

weather was clear, and Watkins’s windshield was unobstructed.

But as we’ve mentioned, it was dark outside, and though the

building at 30 Bellamy Place was well-lit, the long driveway ap-

proaching it had no lights. The oﬃcers were well camouﬂaged in

black shoes, navy pants and jackets, and dark-colored hats. And

Oﬃcer Davis also wore a black facemask and gloves. Plus, Wat-

kins’s headlights were directed across the driveway, away from the

oﬃcers.

Oﬃcer Faulkner headed down the left side of the driveway

while Oﬃcer Davis moved down the right. Near the top of the

driveway, Oﬃcer Faulkner turned on his ﬂashlight, mounted on top

of the barrel of his gun, and pointed it at Watkins’s car. Oﬃcer

Davis kept his ﬂashlight oﬀ.

Oﬃcer Faulkner’s ﬂashlight beam traveled up the parking-

lot pavement onto the passenger side of Watkins’s vehicle about 36

seconds after she got into her car. At just about the same time,

Watkins put down her phone and put the car in drive. At this point,

the district court noted, Watkins’s car was about 78 to 110 feet

from Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis.

A second later, the hatchback rolled forward and quickly

turned towards the gate leading from the parking lot to the start

of the driveway. By now, Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis were about

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8 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

a quarter of the way down the driveway, and Davis took a few steps

to the left into the center of the driveway. The record doesn’t say

why he did so, but the district court construed his actions to be “an

apparent attempt to block the car’s path.” By contrast, Oﬃcer

Faulkner moved towards the left edge of the driveway, away from

the car’s trajectory.

Three seconds after the car began moving, it reached the

driveway gate, about 47 to 63 feet from the oﬃcers. Oﬃcer Davis

stood silently in the right-center of the driveway, while Oﬃcer

Faulkner exclaimed, “Uh-uh,” and raised his gun at the car.

As the hatchback entered the driveway, Oﬃcer Davis turned

on his ﬂashlight, and Oﬃcer Faulkner yelled, “Freeze!” Almost im-

mediately, Oﬃcer Davis dropped his ﬂashlight, drew his gun, and

swiftly moved back and to the left, across the driveway towards Of-

ﬁcer Faulkner.

Within a second, Oﬃcer Faulkner once more screamed,

“Hey, stop, freeze!” Then Oﬃcer Davis ﬁred several shots into the

front of Watkins’s SUV. At the same time, security footage of the

driveway captured Oﬃcer Davis moving away from Watkins’s car

to the left edge of the driveway. Still, it’s not clear from either se-

curity or body-camera footage whether Oﬃcer Davis was ever in

the path of Watkins’s SUV.

When the car drew even with the oﬃcers, Oﬃcer Faulkner’s

body-camera footage shows, Faulkner ﬁred at least one shot at the

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 9

front-right side of it. 1 The entire time the car traveled in a straight

path. At no point did it swerve or otherwise change course as if to

intentionally hit Oﬃcers Faulkner or Davis. Watkins later testiﬁed

that although she didn’t hear anything until the gunshots, she ac-

celerated up the driveway when she saw ﬂashlights walking to her

because she thought someone was trying to attack her.

While the car reached the end of the driveway, Oﬃcer Faulk-

ner checked on Oﬃcer Davis, who fell into the grass behind him,

next to the driveway. Oﬃcer Faulkner found Oﬃcer Davis un-

harmed. Then the two ran after the car, which had left the drive-

way.

When the car drove about 50 yards up the road, it stopped

near the oﬃcers’ parked cars. Watkins’s car never left the oﬃcers’

sight line and stopped less than 15 seconds after the oﬃcers shot.

Oﬃcers Yi and Harris reached the SUV ﬁrst. They ordered

Watkins to get out with her hands raised. For their parts, as Oﬃc-

ers Faulkner and Davis approached, they kept their guns drawn.

And Oﬃcer Davis also ordered Watkins to submit. As Watkins

backed away from her car, she yelled, “Wait, wait, I work there! I

work there!”

1 The parties dispute whether Officers Faulkner and Davis’s firing complied

with Henry County Police Department policy. Official policy states that

“shots will not be fired from or at moving vehicles, unless the occupants of the

vehicle are using deadly force against the officer or another person, and it is

the officer’s reasonable belief there are no other alternative means of protect-

ing life.”

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10 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

Upon learning this information, the oﬃcers began to reas-

sure Watkins. Meanwhile, Oﬃcer Faulkner secured her and con-

ﬁrmed that she was alone and not injured. Watkins explained that,

as assistant manager of the business at 30 Bellamy Place, she was

picking up oxygen tanks and equipment to deliver to a COVID pa-

tient. She told the oﬃcers, “I didn’t know who y’all was—I was

scared because I was down there by myself.” Oﬃcer Faulkner re-

plied, “That’s understandable.”

Later, Oﬃcer Harris echoed that sentiment. She testiﬁed

that she didn’t believe Watkins could tell that oﬃcers were ap-

proaching her when she ﬂed. And she didn’t think Watkins in-

tended to aim her car at Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis.

Back at the scene, Oﬃcer Yi led Watkins away from her car.

Then Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis began inspecting it. The SUV

had one bullet hole in the windshield, two in the hood, and one in

the front passenger-side door. Oﬃcer Davis told Faulkner, “I

thought she was going to fucking hit me.” And Davis replied,

“Yeah, I did too. She was trying to.”

Oﬃcer Yi returned to check on Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis.

Oﬃcer Davis explained, “We were just going to talk to her because

she was out there.’”

Ultimately, Oﬃcer Yi separated Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis

from the investigation about three-and-a-half minutes after Wat-

kins got out of her car and about four minutes after they ﬁred shots.

Meanwhile, Oﬃcer Harris secured Watkins in the back of

her cruiser. The oﬃcers kept Watkins there, handcuﬀed, for three

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 11

to four hours before releasing her. At some point, an ambulance

arrived at the scene. Medical personnel evaluated Watkins on site

and determined she didn’t have any physical injuries. After the of-

ﬁcers released Watkins, her mother and sister took her home.

The police never charged Watkins with any crime. But that

evening, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation took custody of Wat-

kins’s car. Later, Watkins’s insurance company declared the SUV a

total loss because of the gunshot damage.

B. Procedural Background

Watkins sued Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis (“Defendants” or

“Oﬃcers”) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. She alleged they had subjected

her to a “[s]eizure of [p]erson and [u]nlawful [d]etention,” excessive

force, and property damage in violation of the Fourth Amend-

ment. 2 She also raised some state-law claims. The Oﬃcers jointly

moved for summary judgment.

The district court granted their motion on Watkins’s state-

law claims. It concluded that the Oﬃcers were entitled to oﬃcial

immunity under Georgia’s constitution.

But the court denied the Oﬃcers’ motion on Watkins’s

§ 1983 claims. The court determined that the oﬃcers had seized

Watkins’s person because “Watkins stopped and submitted to po-

lice authority shortly after, and because, the shots were ﬁred.” As

2 Watkins also initially sued Henry County and Chief of Police Mark Amerman

but later abandoned her claims against them.

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12 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

for Watkins’s “seizure of person and unlawful detention” claim, the

district court construed it as an “unlawful investigatory stop” claim.

And the court held that the oﬃcers were not entitled to qualiﬁed

immunity on that claim. The court explained that “a reasonable

jury could conclude that Defendants did not have arguable reason-

able suspicion that Watkins was involved in criminal activity when

they seized her.”

As to the excessive-force claim, the court held that “a reason-

able jury could conclude that Defendants lacked probable cause to

believe that [Watkins] was using her car as a dangerous weapon.”

So, the court reasoned, “ﬁring on Watkins violated her clearly es-

tablished rights to be free from excessive force.”

Finally, on Watkins’s property claim, the court also denied

qualiﬁed immunity. It held that “a reasonable police oﬃcer would

have known that exigent circumstances did not permit the warrant-

less seizure of Watkins’s car, and that eﬀecting such a seizure would

violate clearly established law.”

Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis now appeal the denial of their

motion for summary judgment on all three of Watkins’s § 1983

claims.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review de novo a district court’s denial of a motion for

summary judgment on qualiﬁed-immunity grounds. Fils v. City of

Aventura, 647 F.3d 1272, 1287 (11th Cir. 2011). Summary judgment

is appropriate only when the moving party shows that no disputed

issue of material fact exists. Gervin v. Florence, 139 F.4th 1236, 1245

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 13

(11th Cir. 2025). On a motion for summary judgment based on

qualiﬁed immunity, we “resolve all issues of material fact in favor

of the [P]laintiﬀ, and then determine the legal question of whether

the defendant is entitled to qualiﬁed immunity under that version

of the facts.” Bashir v. Rockdale County, 445 F.3d 1323, 1326–27 (11th

Cir. 2006). We don’t make credibility determinations or choose be-

tween conﬂicting testimony. Bozeman v. Orum, 422 F.3d 1265, 1267–

68 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam).

III. DISCUSSION

Watkins alleges three violations of her Fourth Amendment

rights: a “seizure of person and unlawful detention,” the use of ex-

cessive force, and an unlawful seizure of her property. The Oﬃcers

argue that they are entitled to qualiﬁed immunity on all three of

Watkins’s claims because they say (1) they never seized her or her

vehicle, (2) they did not violate the Fourth Amendment, and (3)

they did not violate clearly established law.

We begin by quickly reviewing the principles of qualiﬁed

immunity.

To invoke qualiﬁed immunity, an oﬃcial must ﬁrst show that

he “was acting within the scope of his discretionary authority”

when he engaged in the challenged acts. Alcocer v. Mills, 906 F.3d

944, 951 (11th Cir. 2018). Watkins concedes that the Oﬃcers did

that. As a result, the burden shifts to Watkins to show that the Of-

ﬁcers aren’t entitled to qualiﬁed immunity. Id.

To do that, Watkins must establish “both that the

[O]fficer[s’] conduct violated a constitutionally protected right and

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14 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

that the right was clearly established at the time of the miscon-

duct.” Id. Whether a right is “clearly established” raises an objec-

tive question. Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F.3d 1156, 1165 (11th Cir. 2000).

And “a police officer is entitled to qualified immunity if a reasona-

ble police officer could have believed his or her actions were lawful

in light of clearly established law and the information possessed by

the officer at the time the conduct occurred.” Id.

Watkins can show the law was “clearly established” in any

of three ways: (1) she can identify a qualifying case with “indistin-

guishable facts,” (2) she can rely on “a broad statement of principle

within the Constitution, statute, or case law,” or (3) she can show

that the Officers’ behavior was “so egregious” that it was obvious

“a constitutional right was clearly violated, even in the total ab-

sence of case law.” Gervin, 139 F.4th at 1261. The caselaw she can

cite to support this showing includes the “binding decisions of the

Supreme Court of the United States, this Court, and the highest

court of” Georgia. Glasscox v. City of Argo, 903 F.3d 1207, 1217 (11th

Cir. 2018). But we can also “consider persuasive out-of-circuit au-

thority to determine whether a violation was of ‘obvious clarity.’”

Gilmore v. Ga. Dep’t of Corr., 144 F.4th 1246, 1259 (11th Cir. 2025)

(en banc).

We analyze each Defendant’s actions and omissions sepa-

rately when we consider whether Watkins carried her burden to

show that qualified immunity is not appropriate. Alcocer, 906 F.3d

at 951.

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Watkins alleges Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis violated the

Fourth Amendment. As relevant here, that amendment guaran-

tees that “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their per-

sons . . . and eﬀects, against unreasonable . . . seizures, shall not be

violated . . . .” U.S. CONST. amend. IV. “The touchstone of the

Fourth Amendment is reasonableness.” Barnes v. Felix, 145 S. Ct.

1353, 1358 (2025) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

Being a police oﬃcer is a hard job, and we are indebted to

oﬃcers who regularly put their lives on the line to keep us safe.

That said, oﬃcers have a responsibility to exercise their authority—

especially when it’s obvious it could cause injury or death to civil-

ians—reasonably and with common sense. When we view the ev-

idence in the light most favorable to Watkins, we must conclude

that a genuine question of fact exists here as to whether the Oﬃc-

ers did that.

Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis were assigned to respond to a

report of two individuals breaking into a truck at 11 Bellamy Place.

Yet they went to 30 Bellamy Place, where they saw a lone woman

and a hatchback car (not a truck). They had no grounds to suspect

her of any wrongdoing.

Still, in darkness and eﬀectively camouﬂaged, they ap-

proached her without identifying themselves. Then they de-

manded that she, a woman driving alone on an isolated driveway,

with only one way out, immediately stop for them. And when she

tried to escape from what a reasonable person would have thought

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16 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

was a dangerous situation, without any warning, they repeatedly

ﬁred their weapons at her.

As we explain below, a reasonable jury could conclude that

no reasonable oﬃcer would have thought Watkins a threat, that no

reasonable oﬃcer would have shot at her, and that no reasonable

oﬃcer would have acted as Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis did. So we

aﬃrm the denial of summary judgment on qualiﬁed-immunity

grounds on all three of Watkins’s claims. We address each claim

individually in turn.

A. Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis seized Watkins’s person.

Before we consider Watkins’s “seizure of person and unlaw-

ful detention” and excessive-force claims, we must ﬁrst assess

whether Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis seized Watkins’s person.

That’s so because, as relevant here, the Fourth Amendment’s pro-

tections kick in when an oﬃcer engages in a “seizure of the per-

son.” See California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 625 (1991).

An oﬃcer may eﬀect a “seizure of the person” in one of two

ways. He may either use physical force, or even with no force, he

may seize a person by securing the person’s “submission to the as-

sertion of authority.” Id. at 626 (emphasis altered). “[E]ach type of

seizure enjoys a separate common law pedigree that gives rise to a

separate rule.” Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 306, 322 (2021).

The Oﬃcers argue they never seized Watkins. Instead, they

say, they “ﬁred in self-defense not in an eﬀort to detain [Watkins]”

and “did not hit [Watkins].” Plus, they argue, “[Watkins] did not

stop due to gunﬁre.”

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But we disagree with the Oﬃcers’ assessment. Under both

the physical-force and the submission-of-authority tests, Oﬃcers

Faulkner and Davis seized Watkins.

1. Physical Force

We ﬁrst consider whether the Oﬃcers used physical force to

seize Watkins. Everyone agrees on the basic facts that constrain

our analysis. Together, the Oﬃcers intentionally shot Watkins’s

car four times as she was driving it. Oﬃcer Davis hit the car three

times, and Oﬃcer Faulkner hit the car once. But no bullet pierced

Watkins’s ﬂesh. So we must determine whether intentionally ﬁring

at and hitting Watkins’s car constituted a seizure of Watkins as the

car’s driver.

We hold that it did. We begin with Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S.

306. In Torres, the Court considered what it means to seize a person

using physical force. See id. Similarly to the facts here, in Torres,

oﬃcers ﬁred their guns at Roxanne Torres as she drove her car away

from them, mistakenly thinking they were carjackers. Id. at

30910. But unlike here, two of the oﬃcers’ thirteen shots hit

Torres’s back. Id. at 310. She sought damages under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983. Id.

To determine whether the oﬃcers seized Torres, the Su-

preme Court “consult[ed] the common law of arrest, the ‘quintes-

sential “seizure of the person” under our Fourth Amendment ju-

risprudence.’” Id. at 311 (quoting Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 624). Not-

ing that law enforcement didn’t carry ﬁrearms until the second half

of the nineteenth century, the Court looked in the common law for

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18 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

an analogy to the use of a bullet to seize a person. See id. at 315–

16.

And it found one. In Countess of Rutland’s Case (1605), Co.

Rep. 52b, 77 Eng. Rep. 332, serjeants-at-mace had to execute a writ

for a judgment of debt against the Countess of Rutland. Torres, 592

U.S. at 315. To do so, they “shewed her their mace, and touching

her body with it, said to her, we arrest you, madam.” Id. (quoting

Countess of Rutland’s Case, 6 Co. Rep. at 54a, 77 Eng. Rep. at 336).

The Court understood Countess “as an example of an arrest

[or seizure] made by touching with an object . . . .” Id. And it found

“no basis for drawing an artiﬁcial line between grasping with a

hand and other means of applying physical force to eﬀect an arrest

[seizure].” Id. at 316. So, the Court reasoned, “[t]he required ‘cor-

poral seising or touching the defendant’s body’ can be as readily

accomplished by a bullet as by the end of a ﬁnger.” Id. (quoting 3

WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND

228 (1768)). Indeed, the Court explained, “[w]e will not carve out

this greater intrusion on personal security from the mere-touch

rule just because founding-era courts did not confront apprehen-

sion by ﬁrearm.” Id.

Still, the Court cautioned, not every physical contact be-

tween law enforcement and a member of the public amounts to a

Fourth Amendment seizure. Id. at 317. Rather, two things are nec-

essary for a Fourth Amendment seizure: (1) “the use of force with

[(2)] intent to restrain.” Id. Indeed, the combination of these two

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 19

things eﬀects a seizure even when it does not manage to restrain

the person. Id. at 313.

We consider each requirement.

First, “the use of force”: Torres and Countess teach that “a

mere touch” can be enough “force” to eﬀect a seizure. See Torres,

592 U.S. at 317. And that “mere touch” may be indirect—through

an object like a mace or a bullet. See id. at 316.

But that’s not all. Torres ﬁnds more guidance in an analogy

to common-law torts, speciﬁcally the tort of false imprisonment,

to conclude “that the common law considered touching to be a sei-

zure.” Id. at 320; cf. United States v. Jones, 565 U.S. 400, 406 (2012)

(“[F]or most of our history the Fourth Amendment was under-

stood to embody a particular concern for government trespass

upon the areas” including “persons” that “it enumerates.”). As the

Court explained, “false imprisonment required ‘conﬁne-

ment’ . . . .” Torres, 592 U.S. at 320. But “conﬁnement,” in turn,

consisted of “no more than that the defendant ‘had for one mo-

ment taken possession of the plaintiﬀ’s person’—including, ‘for ex-

ample, if he had tapped her on the shoulder, and said, “You are my

prisoner.”’” Id.

So we follow the Supreme Court’s lead and look to the com-

mon law for guidance on the meaning of “touch” and “force” more

generally. See id. at 314 (looking to the common-law meaning of

“force” and noting that “‘[t]he least touching of another’s person’

could satisfy the common law deﬁnition of force to commit bat-

tery, ‘for the law cannot draw the line between diﬀerent degrees of

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20 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

violence’” (alteration in original) (quoting BLACKSTONE,

COMMENTARIES, supra, at 120); cf. Jones, 565 U.S. at 405–08 (“[O]ur

Fourth Amendment jurisprudence was tied to common-law tres-

pass, at least until the latter half of the 20th century,” and looking

to common-law trespass for guidance in determining whether the

use of a GPS tracking device was a search under the Fourth

Amendment). The common law had much to say about the con-

cept of “touch.” Indeed, common-law “touch” extended beyond

just person-to-person contact.

For example, the common law deﬁned the “crime of bat-

tery” as the “intentional application of unlawful force against the

person of another” with force “satisﬁed by even the slightest oﬀen-

sive touching.” Johnson v. United States, 559 U.S. 133, 139 (2010) (cit-

ing BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES, supra, at 120); cf. Torres, 592 U.S.

at 314 (looking to the deﬁnition of “force” for battery actions to

discern the “force” necessary to sustain an arrest). And that touch-

ing extended to “anything attached to the person” that through its

attachment “partakes of [a person’s] inviolability.” Respublica v. De

Longchamps, 1 U.S. (1 Dall) 111, 114 (O.T. Phila. 1784). So “[t]hough

no great bodily pain is suﬀered by a blow on the palm of the hand,

or the skirt of the coat, . . . these are clearly within the legal d[e]ﬁ-

nition of Assault and Battery . . . .” Johnson, 559 U.S. at 146 (Alito,

J., dissenting) (internal quotation marks omitted) (second altera-

tion in original) (quoting Respublica, 1 U.S. at 114).

But the concept of “touch” did not end with a person’s cloth-

ing. Rather, as early as the seventeenth through nineteenth

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 21

centuries, courts and scholars evaluating assault-and-battery claims

recognized that hitting a horse amounted to a strike upon its rider.

See, e.g., Dodwell v. Burford (1669), 86 Eng. Rep. 703, 703; 1 Mod. 25,

25 (“The plaintiﬀs, in an action of battery declared, that the defend-

ant struck the horse whereon the wife rode, so that the horse ran

away with her, whereby she was thrown down, and another horse

ran over her . . . .”); Bannister v. Fisher (1808), 127 Eng. Rep. 872, 872;

1 Taunt. 358, 358 (“The Defendant could not assault the horse

while the man was on it, without assaulting the man.”); State v. Da-

vis, 19 S.C.L. (1 Hill) 46, 47 (1833) (“It has been held that . . . striking

violently . . . the horse on which [a person] rides, is an assault; The

thing in th[is] instance[] partaking of the personal inviolability.”);

ISAAC ESPINASSE, DIGEST OF THE LAW OF ACTIONS AND TRIALS AT

NISI PRIUS 174 (3d ed. 1811) (“[I]f any person had whipped [a] horse,

and made him runaway with the rider, and hurt . . . the rider him-

self, he would be liable who had whipped the horse.” (emphasis

omitted)); ARCHIBALD JOHN STEPHENS, LAW OF NISI PRIUS,

EVIDENCE IN CIVIL ACTIONS, AND ARBITRATION & AWARDS 210–11

(1842) (recognizing a battery “where the plaintiﬀ declared that the

defendant struck the horse whereon his wife rode, so that the horse

ran away with her, whereby she was thrown down, and another

horse ran over her”); FRANCIS WHARTON, TREATISE ON CRIMINAL

LAW § 617 (9th ed. 1885) (“A battery is an assault in which force is

applied, by material agencies, to the person of another, either me-

diately or immediately . . . . The force may be applied through con-

ductors more or less close. Thus to strike . . . the horse on which

he is riding . . . may be as much a battery as to strike his face . . . .”);

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22 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

cf. Storey v. Robinson (1795), 101 Eng. Rep. 476, 479; 6 T.R. 138, 139

(holding that it is illegal to distrain a horse with a rider on it).

And that was so whether the victim rode on the horse’s back

or inside a carriage that the horse pulled. Marentille v. Oliver, 2 N.J.L.

379, 380 (1808) (opinion of Pennington, J.) (“To attack and strike

with a club, with violence, the horse before a carriage, in which a

person is riding, strikes me as an assault on the person . . . .”);

ESPINASSE, DIGEST, supra, at 173 (“Striking any thing attached to a

person, . . . if intended as a rudeness and aﬀront, is a battery. So

striking . . . horses before a carriage in which a person was riding,

was held to be an assault upon the person. In [that] case[] the sub-

ject partaking of the personal inviolability.”); HENRY G. COTTON,

TREATISE ON THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE PEACE IN THE STATE

OF ILLINOIS 220 (1845) (“Striking violently, with a club, horses before

a carriage in which a person was riding, was held to be an assault

upon the person.”).

Similarly, courts held, and scholars recognized, that contact

with a cart or wagon could support a claim of assault on a rider.

See, e.g., Hopper v. Reeve (1817), 129 Eng. Rep. 278, 278; 7 Taunt. 699,

699 (“It is a direct trespass to injure the person of another by driving

a carriage against the carriage wherein such person is sitting . . . .”);

People v. Lee, 1 Wheeler Crim. Cas. 364, 365 (N.Y. Crim. Ct. 1823)

(“[T]he conduct of the defendant, in attempting to run against the

wagon of the prosecutor, was clearly an assault; his horse and cart

was merely a machine, and could as well be directed against the

prosecutor as any other inanimate object.”); ARCHIBALD JOHN

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 23

STEPHENS, LAW OF NISI PRIUS, supra, at 208 (“[U]psetting a carriage

or chair in which a person is sitting, is a trespass against the per-

son . . . .”); HENRY G. COTTON, TREATISE ON THE POWERS AND

DUTIES, supra, at 220 (“It is an assault to attempt to run against the

wagon of another person on the highway. The horse and cart of

the defendant being merely a machine, could as well be directed

against the prosecutor as an inanimate object.”).

Put simply, then, at common law, touching a person’s horse

or carriage—directly or indirectly—while the person rode

amounted to touching their person. So under Torres’s rule, touch-

ing a rider’s horse or carriage committed the necessary “force” to

eﬀect a seizure because the common law understood the touch as

a touch of the person. See Torres, 592 U.S. at 313–18, 325.

We see no material diﬀerence from an oﬃcer’s bullet that

strikes the car of a person driving it. Of course, we don’t see many

horse-drawn carriages anymore. But that’s so because cars took

their place. So if touching a carriage or the horse drawing it

counted as the “force” necessary to eﬀect a seizure of the rider in-

side the carriage, then touching a car with a driver inside it also

amounts to the “force” necessary to eﬀect a seizure of the driver.

And because Torres teaches that touching with a bullet is the same

thing as touching with a hand, the Oﬃcers’ shots that hit Watkins’s

car were the necessary “force” to satisfy the ﬁrst requirement of

eﬀecting a seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

That brings us to the second requirement for a seizure: “in-

tent to restrain.” Torres, 592 U.S. at 317 (emphasis altered). We

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24 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

assess whether the Oﬃcers intended to restrain by asking “whether

the challenged conduct objectively manifests an intent to restrain.”

Id. In conducting our analysis, we don’t consider “the subjective

perceptions of the seized person.” Id.

Once again, we look to Torres for guidance. There, the

Court concluded that shooting at Torres’s car “objectively mani-

fested an intent to restrain her from driving away.” Id. at 318. We

discern no basis for distinguishing Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis’s

shooting of Watkins’s car. So we conclude that the oﬃcers “in-

ten[ded] to restrain” Watkins when they shot her car.

Because Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis both used force to indi-

rectly touch Watkins when they shot the car she was driving and

they intended to restrain her at that time, they eﬀected a seizure by

physical force of Watkins under the Fourth Amendment.

We know some of our sister circuits have concluded that

shooting a car to restrain the driver does not eﬀect a seizure by

physical force. 3 But the courts decided each of these cases without

3 See Bella v. Chamberlain, 24 F.3d 1251, 1255–56 (10th Cir. 1994); Cole v. Bone,

993 F.2d 1328, 1332–33 (8th Cir. 1993); Adams v. City of Auburn Hills, 336 F.3d

515, 519 (6th Cir. 2003). By contrast, the Fifth Circuit has held that in a case

like this one, where an officer shot a car, damaged it, and caused the driver to

exit to investigate the noise, the officer committed a seizure by physical force.

Flores v. City of Palacios, 381 F.3d 391, 396–97 (5th Cir. 2004); cf. Schultz v. Braga,

455 F.3d 470, 483 (4th Cir. 2006) (refusing to follow Flores where a shot did not

intentionally terminate the freedom of movement of a passenger plaintiff but

declining to rule on whether “a suspect must be physically struck by a bullet

(or any other object) to state a claim for excessive force”).

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 25

the beneﬁt of Torres’s guidance. 4 And now that we have that, Torres

causes us to conclude that shooting a car to restrain the driver does

eﬀect a seizure.

Troupe v. Sarasota County, 419 F.3d 1160 (11th Cir. 2005), does

not require a diﬀerent answer. There, an oﬃcer attempted to “dis-

able [a] car” by ﬁring “a single shot at a low angle, aiming for the

lower portion of the tire.” Id. at 1164 (internal quotation marks

omitted). But the oﬃcer “missed the tire and, apparently, did not

strike anyone or anything.” Id. So we found no seizure. Id. at 1167.

Though we decided Troupe years before the Supreme Court issued

Torres, our answer makes sense even under Torres because no touch

occurred when the bullet missed, so no “force” took place, as the

common law understood that concept. 5

4 We similarly concluded in an unpublished opinion four years before the Su-

preme Court issued Torres that shooting and hitting a car does not seize the

driver. See Reed v. Clough, 694 F. App’x 716, 724 (11th Cir. 2017) (per curiam)

(unpublished). But unpublished opinions are “not binding authority

and . . . [are] persuasive only to the extent that a subsequent panel finds the

rationale expressed in that opinion to be persuasive after an independent con-

sideration of the legal issue.” United States v. Doe, 137 F.4th 1277, 1283 (11th

Cir. 2025) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Because Torres re-

quires a different analysis and answer than Reed, we don’t find Reed persuasive,

so we do not follow it.

5 Troupe did hold that “stopping a vehicle’s driver does not constitute a seizure

of a passenger.” 419 F.3d at 1167. There, a separate officer “fired two shots at

the driver”; “[o]ne bullet struck the driver’s door just above the keyhole” and

“[t]he other bullet went through the driver’s side window and hit [the driver]

in the back.” See id. at 1164. Troupe found no seizure of the passengers. Id. at

1167. But the opinion did not address whether the driver, who was seized

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26 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

In sum, we hold that Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis seized

Watkins by physical force when they shot and hit her vehicle.

2. Show of Authority

Besides seizing Watkins by physical force, the Oﬃcers sim-

ultaneously seized her by a show of authority. The district court

correctly deployed this framework in this exceptional case to hold

that the Oﬃcers seized Watkins.

A seizure based on a show of authority occurs “only when

there is a governmental termination of freedom of movement

through means intentionally applied.” Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S

593, 597 (1989); see also Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 7 (1985)

(“Whenever an oﬃcer restrains the freedom of a person to walk

away, he has seized that person.”) “In determining whether the

means that terminates the freedom of movement is the very means

that the government intended we cannot draw too ﬁne a line . . . .”

Brower, 489 U.S. at 598. It is “enough for a seizure that a person be

when his body was hit, would have been seized had the officer hit only the

car. And shooting at and hitting a car (but not the driver) effects a seizure of

the driver but not the passenger because in the case of the driver, it satisfies

both parts of the definition of “seizure”—(1) force and (2) intent to restrain—

but in the case of the passenger, it satisfies only the first prong. Drivers steer

vehicles; passengers don’t. So shooting a moving car objectively evidences an

intent to restrain the driver, who controls the car. That same intent is not nec-

essarily present to restrain the movement of a passenger, who sits passively in

the hands of the driver and who the police may not even realize is in the vehi-

cle.

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 27

stopped by the very instrumentality set in motion or put in place in

order to achieve that result.” Id. at 599.

For this kind of seizure, “[a] person has been seized . . . only

if, in view of all the circumstances surrounding the incident, a rea-

sonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.”

Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 627–28 (quoting United States v. Mendenhall,

446 U.S. 544, 554 (1980) (opinion of Stewart, J.)) (internal quotation

marks omitted). “[T]he test for existence of a ‘show of authority’

is an objective one: not whether the citizen perceived that he was

being ordered to restrict his movement, but whether the oﬃcer’s

words and actions would have conveyed that to a reasonable per-

son.” Id. at 628.

In a canonical opinion, which the full Court has since em-

braced, Justice Stewart oﬀered examples of facts “that might indi-

cate a seizure.” Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554 (opinion of Stewart, J.);

see also Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 627 (recognizing Justice Stewart’s

“Mendenhall test” was “adopted by the Court in later cases”). For

instance, he pointed to “the threatening presence of several oﬃc-

ers, the display of a weapon by an oﬃcer, some physical touching

of the person of the citizen, or the use of language or tone of voice

indicating that compliance with the oﬃcer’s request might be com-

pelled.” Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554 (opinion of Stewart, J.); see also

United States v. Jordan, 635 F.3d 1181, 1186 (11th Cir. 2011) (quoting

United States v. Perez, 443 F.3d 772, 778 (11th Cir. 2006)) (to deter-

mine “whether a seizure has occurred, we consider . . . ‘whether a

citizen’s path is blocked or impeded; whether identiﬁcation is

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28 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

retained; the suspect’s age, education and intelligence; the length

of the suspect’s detention and questioning; the number of police

oﬃcers present; the display of weapons; any physical touching of

the suspect, and the language and tone of voice of the police’”).

Our sister circuits have recognized that one kind of show-

of-authority seizure occurs when an oﬃcer ﬁres his weapon, and

the suspect stops and submits to police custody as a result. See, e.g.,

Floyd v. City of Detroit, 518 F.3d 398, 406 (6th Cir. 2008) (ﬁnding a

seizure when an oﬃcer’s “ﬁring his weapon at [the suspect] was a

show of authority that actually had the intended eﬀect of contrib-

uting to [the suspect]’s immediate restraint.”); Flores v. City of Pala-

cios, 381 F.3d 391, 396–97 (5th Cir. 2004) (holding that a seizure oc-

curred when an oﬃcer shot a suspect’s vehicle, and the suspect

stopped and exited the vehicle to investigate the noise); Bella v.

Chamberlain, 24 F.3d 1251, 1255 (10th Cir. 1994) (“[W]hen law en-

forcement oﬃcers shoot at a ﬂeeing suspect, a ‘seizure’ occurs only

if the shot strikes the ﬂeeing person or if the shot causes the ﬂeeing

person to submit to this show of authority.”). After all, nothing can

communicate more clearly to a suspect that she is not free to leave

than the barrel of a ﬁred weapon. Cf. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. at 554

(opinion of Stewart, J.); Jordan, 635 F.3d at 1186.

Here, Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis shot at Watkins. So upon

realizing that they were police oﬃcers, no reasonable person would

have felt free to leave. The Oﬃcers also intended to seize Watkins

when they ﬁred at her. Indeed, Oﬃcer Faulkner expressly directed

Watkins to submit when he yelled, “Freeze! . . . Hey, stop, freeze!”

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 29

For these reasons, the Oﬃcers’ conduct satisﬁed this part of the

show-of-authority test. That is, the Oﬃcers obviously made a show

of authority.

But the analysis does not end there. Unlike with a seizure

by physical force, a seizure by a show of authority doesn’t happen

unless the subject yields. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 626. In other words,

“[w]hen a suspect ﬂees from the police, he is not submitting to

their authority and therefore is not seized.” Jordan, 635 F.3d at 1186.

As a result, for a show-of-authority seizure to occur, ordinarily a

suspect must submit immediately upon that showing to demon-

strate he yields. Cf. Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 626 (The concept of a

seizure “does not remotely apply . . . to the prospect of a police-

man yelling ‘Stop, in the name of the law!’ at a ﬂeeing form that

continues to ﬂee.”)

Watkins didn’t stop immediately upon the Oﬃcers’ shoot-

ing. And in almost all cases that would signal she didn’t submit to

the show of authority. Cf. id. But this is a very unusual case. Based

on the unique record before us, we conclude she did in fact submit

to comply with the Oﬃcers’ intended seizure.

The key point is that Watkins didn’t—and under the novel

circumstances here, couldn’t—understand a show of authority oc-

curred until she saw patrol cars and learned that Oﬃcers Faulkner

and Davis were oﬃcers. They approached her camouﬂaged in dark

clothing under cover of darkness and oddly never identiﬁed them-

selves before they shot at her. But when it became apparent that

the Oﬃcers were oﬃcers—once Watkins saw their patrol vehicles

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30 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

less than ﬁfteen seconds after the Oﬃcers ﬁred at her and while she

remained in their eyesight—she immediately stopped to submit.

At no point, the record makes clear, did Watkins ignore a known

show of authority and refuse to submit. Rather, Watkins submit-

ted in direct response to both Oﬃcers’ shooting.

In short, the shooting caused Watkins’s submission. And

Watkins was “stopped by the very instrumentality set in motion or

put in place in order to achieve that result.” Brower, 489 U.S. at 599.

We can contrast Watkins’s unusual case with that of the de-

fendant in Hodari D. In Hodari D., an oﬃcer chased a defendant,

but the defendant ignored the clearly identiﬁed oﬃcer’s show of

authority. See Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 623. Instead, “looking behind

as he ran” and seeing an oﬃcer, the defendant “tossed away . . . a

small rock” that turned out to be crack cocaine. Id. In other words,

recognizing that law enforcement was after him, Watkins tried to

discard incriminating evidence. Id. The Supreme Court concluded

the defendant had not been seized at the time he threw away the

drugs because at that point he had not yielded to the submission of

authority. Id. at 626.

Unlike Watkins, the Hodari D. defendant immediately recog-

nized that oﬃcers were subjecting him to a show of authority. But

he never yielded. See id. at 623. Rather, the oﬃcer had to tackle

the defendant to stop him. See id. And the Hodari D. defendant’s

eﬀort to rid himself of the incriminating evidence proved that he

recognized the show of authority, even though he did not yield.

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 31

In contrast, the record here reﬂects that the Oﬃcers were

camouﬂaged in dark clothing in a desolate and unlit area and they

never announced that they were oﬃcers, even when they started

ﬁring at Watkins. As a result, importantly, Watkins both had no

reason to and did not recognize the Oﬃcers were police. So she

was unaware that they had engaged in a show of authority until

she saw the police cars once she left the cul de sac. Nor at any point

did Watkins throw away illegal material or otherwise indicate she

recognized the Oﬃcers were police and made a choice to ignore

their commands. Had she done so, she, like the Hodari D. defend-

ant would have proven by her conduct that she did recognize the

Oﬃcers were police. Or if the Oﬃcers had simply announced that

they were police, then we could conclude she should have recog-

nized that they were Oﬃcers. But neither of those things hap-

pened. Instead, at the ﬁrst opportunity Watkins reasonably had to

submit to the show of force—when she realized the Oﬃcers were

law enforcement upon seeing the police cars—she immediately

submitted.

To be sure, in Torres, the Supreme Court cautioned that a

seizure is “a single act, and not a continuous fact.” Torres, 592 U.S.

at 323 (quoting Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 625). And it declined to adopt

a distinction for physical-force seizures when a seizure occurs after a

gunshot wound if the suspect “stop[s] ‘maybe 50 feet’ or ‘half a

block’ from the scene of the shooting to allow the oﬃcers to

promptly acquire control.” Id. But in that case, the oﬃcers’ shots

did not bring the suspect down immediately, and unlike here, the

suspect never recognized the oﬃcers were police, so she never

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32 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

chose to submit to the oﬃcers’ authority. Indeed, in contrast to

Watkins’s case, the Torres suspect reasonably should have under-

stood she was dealing with law enforcement. But she was experi-

encing methamphetamine withdrawal during her interaction with

police, so she didn’t notice that they were wearing tactical vests

marked with police identiﬁcation.

And as we’ve noted, in Torres, the Court also explained that

a show-of-authority seizure “requires that ‘a person be stopped by

the very instrumentality set in motion or put in place in order to

achieve that result.’” Id. (quoting Brower, 489 U.S. at 599). That’s

what happened here. A “single act”—the shooting—seized Wat-

kins in fact. Watkins stopped solely and voluntarily because of the

show of authority that the shooting represented; the Oﬃcers made

no other shows of authority before she stopped. And she stopped

immediately upon realizing the Oﬃcers were police and had made

a show of authority—when she saw the police cars in the cul de

sac. Not only that, but on this record, Watkins’s failure to recog-

nize that the Oﬃcers were police and had engaged in a show of

authority until she saw the police cars after leaving the cul de sac

was reasonable. So at no point did Watkins choose to refuse police

oﬃcers’ commands. Rather, she obeyed them as soon as she rea-

sonably realized the Oﬃcers had engaged in a show of authority.

We therefore conclude, based on this extraordinary record, that a

show-of-authority seizure occurred.

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 33

In sum, under both the physical-force and show-of-authority

tests for a seizure, Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis seized Watkins. As

a result, the protections of the Fourth Amendment kicked in.

B. The Oﬃcers are not entitled to qualiﬁed immunity on Wat-

kins’s “seizure of person and unlawful detention” claim.

Having established that the Oﬃcers seized Watkins, we turn

to her “unlawful detention” claim. In her barebones complaint,

Watkins labels her claim as being for “[s]eizure of [p]erson and

[u]nlawful [d]etention.” The district court construed Watkins’s ar-

gument to be “(1) that Defendants unlawfully seized her to conduct

an investigative stop and (2) that the stop matured into an unlawful

arrest during the several hours that she was detained.” Because

Defendants were “separated from the investigation less than four

minutes after Watkins was seized” and were “present for [only] the

initial stop, questioning, and securing of Watkins,” the district

court concluded that they could be liable for only the “investigative

stop.” As a result, both parties focus their argument on whether

the Oﬃcers conducted a lawful investigatory stop of Watkins.

But we conclude that Defendants didn’t conduct just an in-

vestigatory stop. Rather, they arrested Watkins.

Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), governs our inquiry into

whether a suspect experienced only an investigatory stop or rather,

an arrest. Under Terry, we must evaluate “whether the stop went

too far and matured into arrest before there was probable

cause . . . .” United States v. Acosta, 363 F.3d 1141, 1145 (11th Cir.

2004). We employ “four non-exclusive factors” to “more

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34 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

objectively draw[] the line between a Terry stop and an arrest in an

individual case . . . .” Id. at 1146. Those factors include (1) “the law

enforcement purposes served by the detention,” (2) “the diligence

with which the police pursue the investigation,” (3) “the scope and

intrusiveness of the detention,” and (4) “the duration of the deten-

tion.” Id. (quoting United States v. Gil, 204 F.3d 1347, 1351 (11th Cir.

2000)(per curiam)).

Here, the Oﬃcers interacted with Watkins for no more than

four minutes. But Watkins’s full detention lasted several hours, be-

ginning with her interaction with the Oﬃcers. And it’s hard to im-

agine a more intrusive detention than one that began with a shoot-

ing. After all, the Supreme Court has explained that “[t]he intru-

siveness of a seizure by means of deadly force is unmatched.” Gar-

ner, 471 U.S. at 9.

Of course, we have recognized that when it comes to Terry

stops, “oﬃcers may take reasonable steps to ensure their safety so

long as they possess ‘an articulable and objectively reasonable be-

lief that the suspect is potentially dangerous.’” Acosta, 363 F.3d at

1146 (quoting Michigan v. Long, 463 U.S. 1032, 1051 (1983)). So, for

instance, we’ve held that an oﬃcer drawing a weapon “does not

necessarily convert an investigatory stop into an arrest.” United

States v. Roper, 702 F.2d 984, 987 (11th Cir. 1983). But we have never

suggested that an oﬃcer may discharge their weapon and still be

engaged in simply an investigatory stop.

Nor could we. After all, to evaluate whether the use of

deadly force is lawful, we assess whether the oﬃcer “has probable

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 35

cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical

harm, either to the oﬃcer or to others . . . .” Garner, 471 U.S. at 11.

That is, to inﬂict deadly force, an oﬃcer must have at least “proba-

ble cause” that the suspect has engaged in a crime—the same stand-

ard for an arrest. See id.; Skop v. City of Atlanta, 485 F.3d 1130, 1137

(11th Cir. 2007) (“[A]n oﬃcer who arrests an individual without

probable cause violates the Fourth Amendment.”). But an oﬃcer

need have only “reasonable suspicion . . . [,] a less demanding stand-

ard than probable cause . . . ,” to justify a Terry stop. Illinois v. Ward-

low, 528 U.S. 119, 123 (2000). So it would be odd to suggest a stop

that involved a shooting by an oﬃcer could be supported just by

reasonable suspicion.

As for the purpose of the stop here, we see nothing investi-

gatory about it. A Terry stop must be “justiﬁed at its incep-

tion . . . .” Terry, 392 U.S. at 20. But the Oﬃcers’ ﬁrst contact with

Watkins occurred when Oﬃcer Faulkner yelled “Freeze! . . . Hey,

stop, freeze!” and both Oﬃcers began ﬁring. They now claim self-

defense, not a need to have investigated Watkins for a crime. That

is, the Oﬃcers responded with deadly force to what they said they

thought was a threat to their lives.

So we conclude Oﬃcers Faulkner and Davis arrested Wat-

kins, and their actions had to be supported by probable cause.

Still, we acknowledge that the parties focus their arguments

on whether the Oﬃcers had “reasonable suspicion” to support

stopping Watkins in the ﬁrst place. And the parties dispute

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36 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

whether the Oﬃcers were entitled to qualiﬁed immunity on that

basis. So we also address those arguments.

Construing the facts for Watkins, we conclude no reasona-

ble oﬃcer could think Defendants even had reasonable suspicion.

Because “reasonable suspicion is a less demanding standard than

probable cause . . . ,” Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 123, no reasonable oﬃcer

would think they had probable cause, either.

“[R]easonable suspicion can be established with information

that is diﬀerent in quantity or content than that required to estab-

lish probable cause.” Kansas v. Glover, 589 U.S. 376, 380 (2020) (quot-

ing Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325, 330 (1990)) (internal quotation

marks omitted). “The standard ‘depends on the factual and practi-

cal considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and pru-

dent men, not legal technicians, act.’” Id. (quoting Navarette v. Cal-

ifornia, 572 U.S. 393, 402 (2014)) (emphasis altered). And “[c]ourts

‘cannot reasonably demand scientiﬁc certainty . . . where none ex-

ists.’” Id. at 380 (quoting Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 125). Instead, courts

“must permit oﬃcers to make ‘commonsense judgments and infer-

ences about human behavior.’” Id. at 380–81.

Even so, though, an “oﬃcer must be able to articulate more

than an ‘inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or “hunch”’ of

criminal activity.” Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 123–24 (quoting Terry, 392

U.S. at 27). Yet “the level of suspicion the standard requires is con-

siderably less than proof of wrongdoing by a preponderance of the

evidence . . . .” Glover, 589 U.S. at 380 (quoting Navarette, 572 U.S.

at 397) (internal quotation marks omitted).

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 37

We must also remember that “[w]hen an oﬃcer asserts qual-

iﬁed immunity, the issue is not whether reasonable suspicion ex-

isted in fact, but whether the oﬃcer had ‘arguable’ reasonable sus-

picion . . . .” Jackson, 206 F.3d at 1166. To satisfy “arguable reason-

able suspicion,” we must evaluate whether “a reasonable oﬃcer

could have believed that the [stop] comported with the Fourth

Amendment.” Meshal v. Comm’r, Ga. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, 117 F.4th

1273, 1288 (11th Cir. 2024).

In sum, “we ‘must examine the totality of the circumstances

to determine whether an oﬃcer had a ‘particularized and objective’

basis to support his suspicion. Whether the oﬃcer’s suspicion ends

up being mistaken is immaterial so long as it was reasonable.’” Id.

(quoting Whittier v. Kobayashi, 581 F.3d 1304, 1309 (11th Cir. 2009)

(per curiam)).

This “‘totality of the circumstances inquiry’ . . . has no time

limit.” Barnes, 145 S. Ct. at 1358. “The history of the interaction,

as well as other past circumstances known to the oﬃcer, . . . inform

the reasonableness of the [Oﬃcers’ actions].” Id. In other words,

we can’t “put on chronological blinders” and assess the arguable

reasonableness of a seizure without proper “consideration of prior

events” that led to the interaction. See id. at 1359.

With that in mind, we assess whether any reasonable oﬃcer

could have had reasonable suspicion that Watkins was engaged in

a crime. Construing the facts for Watkins, we think not.

First, before the events on the driveway, Watkins did nothing

suspicious. The Oﬃcers were dispatched to 11 Bellamy Place;

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38 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

Watkins was on a separate property across the cul-de-sac (30 Bellamy

Place). She was calmly loading her car at her place of employment.

And the Oﬃcers identify no evidence in the record that Bellamy

Place was a “high crime area.” On top of those facts, Oﬃcer Faulk-

ner noticed separate suspects at 11 Bellamy Place near a diﬀerent

black vehicle on that property. So from the Oﬃcers’ perspective,

Watkins was not the suspect they were dispatched to confront.

Second, on this record, Watkins’s ﬂight from the Oﬃcers’

approach cannot justify her stop. To be sure, the Supreme Court

has recognized that “nervous, evasive behavior is a pertinent factor

in determining reasonable suspicion.” Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 124.

And we have consistently recognized that ﬂight or otherwise-sus-

picious behavior upon recognizing oﬃcers supports a ﬁnding of rea-

sonable suspicion. See, e.g., United States v. Lindsey, 482 F.3d 1285,

1291 (11th Cir. 2007); United States v. Franklin, 323 F.3d 1298, 1301–

02 (11th Cir. 2003); United States v. Hunter, 291 F.3d 1302, 1306 (11th

Cir. 2002); United States v. Gordon, 231 F.3d 750, 756 (11th Cir. 2000).

But all bets are oﬀ when an oﬃcer fails to identify himself,

and his status as an oﬃcer isn’t obvious. Indeed, the Supreme

Court has “held that when an oﬃcer insuﬃciently or unclearly

identiﬁes his oﬃce or his mission, the occupant’s ﬂight . . . must be

regarded as ambiguous conduct.” Wong Sun v. United States, 371

U.S. 471, 482 (1963). Consistently, we have clearly established that

“oﬃcers cannot improperly provoke . . . a person into ﬂeeing and

use the ﬂight to justify a stop.” Franklin, 323 F.3d at 1302; see also

Jackson, 206 F.3d at 1166 (ﬁnding no arguable reasonable suspicion

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 39

where the plaintiﬀ ran when mistaking plain clothes oﬃcers for

armed robbers). The touchstone for evaluating ﬂight is “whether

a reasonable and innocent person facing this situation would have

been caused to ﬂee in the same manner . . . .” Franklin, 323 F.3d at

1302.

No reasonable oﬃcer could ﬁnd Watkins’s brief “ﬂight” sug-

gested criminality. The Oﬃcers approached Watkins in complete

darkness except for their ﬂashlights. They had entered the cul-de-

sac with sirens oﬀ; they were on foot when they advanced on Wat-

kins; and they wore dark clothing under cover of night. Oﬃcer

Faulkner didn’t make his identity known any better when he yelled,

“Freeze!” And both oﬃcers started shooting without announcing

that they were oﬃcers. A reasonable person, especially a 47-year-old

woman alone in a desolate place at night, would worry she was

being attacked and ﬂee that scene. That’s not suspicious behavior;

it’s survival instincts. And a reasonable oﬃcer would realize that.

So even though the Oﬃcers may not have meant to provoke Wat-

kins’s ﬂight, they still did exactly that. Cf. Jackson, 206 F.3d at 1166.

And they cannot use her provoked ﬂight to justify the stop. Frank-

lin, 323 F.3d at 1302.

In one last try, the Oﬃcers argue that they had arguable rea-

sonable suspicion to stop Watkins because they claim she almost

hit Oﬃcer Davis with her car. They point out Georgia courts have

upheld convictions for assault when a suspect has driven directly at

an oﬃcer to avoid detention. See, e.g., Miller v. State, 833 S.E.2d 142

(Ga. Ct. App. 2019) (“[T]he evidence shows that [the suspect] drove

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40 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

the stolen white van directly toward Deputies . . . when they at-

tempted to detain him, only missing them when they dove out of

the way.”).

But when we construe the record for Watkins for the pur-

poses of summary judgment, we can’t conclude that a reasonable

oﬃcer would have suspected Watkins tried to hit Oﬃcer Davis

with her car.

To start, there’s a genuine question of material fact as to

whether Officers Faulkner and Davis could have reasonably

thought Officer Davis was visible to the naked eye in the center of

the driveway. That is— there is a question as to whether a reason-

able officer in Officer Faulkner and Davis’s shoes would think Wat-

kins saw Davis with enough time for her to process his location and

change course.

The record contains several pieces of evidence that suggest

no reasonable officer would think Davis visible. The driveway was

covered in darkness. Officer Davis, wearing all black and a face-

mask, did not initially shine his flashlight at Watkins’s car. Nor did

he make so much as a peep. It was only Officer Faulkner who

yelled. And as we’ve noted, he yelled only, “Hey, stop, freeze!”—

which offered no indication of the location of Officer Davis.

We must resolve this question of fact in favor of Watkins.

So we must assess the claim to qualified immunity as though nei-

ther Officer Faulkner nor Officer Davis could have reasonably

thought Watkins could see Davis in the road. Besides that fact, Of-

ficer Davis was only close to the car’s pathway because he

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 41

intentionally stepped in the center of the driveway that was the sole

egress from 30 Bellamy Place. So under this version of the facts,

Officer Davis alone caused any risk of a collision. And we think it

common sense that an officer can’t step in the middle of oncoming

traffic, taking drivers unaware, and reasonably claim to be the vic-

tim of vehicular assault. Cf. Kirby v. Duva, 530 F.3d 475, 482–83 (6th

Cir. 2008) (denying qualified immunity on an excessive-force claim

and highlighting that an officer unreasonably “placed himself in po-

tential danger by moving toward the rolling [car]”); Estate of Starks

v. Enyart, 5 F.3d 230, 234 (7th Cir. 1993) (“The key dispute for the

factfinder will be whether [the officer] stepped in front of [the sus-

pect’s] rapidly moving cab, leaving [the suspect] no time to brake.

If he did, then [the officer] would have unreasonably created the

encounter that ostensibly permitted the use of deadly force to pro-

tect him, because the decedent would have been unable to react in

order to avoid presenting a deadly threat to [the officer].”).

Plus, Watkins engaged in no erratic driving behavior sug-

gesting she was trying to hit Officer Davis. So with proper “consid-

eration of prior events,” Barnes, 145 S. Ct. at 1359, and viewing the

evidence in the light most favorable to Watkins, we think no rea-

sonable oﬃcer would conclude Watkins spontaneously decided to

hit Oﬃcer Davis with her car.

In fact, if Watkins had wanted to hit an oﬃcer, Oﬃcer Faulk-

ner would have made the easier target—as any reasonable oﬃcer

would’ve realized. He, unlike Oﬃcer Davis, revealed his location

with his ﬂashlight before Watkins started driving. Yet Watkins

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42 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

drove up the other side of the driveway, away from Oﬃcer Faulk-

ner. It’s no wonder, then, that Oﬃcer Harris did not think Watkins

intended to hit any oﬃcers.

Then to top it all oﬀ, a genuine dispute of material fact exists

over whether Watkins’s car even would have hit Oﬃcer Davis had

he not moved. We must treat this dispute as though he would not

have been hit by Watkins’s car. Yet even absent this dispute, a rea-

sonable jury could find no reasonable officer would think Watkins

attempted vehicular assault. But that finding is especially likely if

the jury finds, as it may, that Davis was never in danger.

At bottom, Watkins engaged in no behavior that a reasona-

ble oﬃcer could ﬁnd suspicious. So the Oﬃcers had no arguable

reasonable suspicion for conducting their stop. That means they

also had no arguable probable cause, the standard the Oﬃcers had

to meet to support a claim of qualiﬁed immunity for an unlawful

arrest. See Skop, 485 F.3d at 1137 (explaining the standard of “argu-

able probable cause,” which is whether “reasonable oﬃcers in the

same circumstances and possessing the same knowledge as the De-

fendant[] could have believed that probable cause existed to arrest.”);

Wardlow, 528 U.S. at 123 (explaining reasonable suspicion is a less

demanding standard than probable cause). For these reasons, they

are not entitled to qualiﬁed immunity on Watkins’s “seizure of per-

son and unlawful detention” claim.

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 43

C. The Oﬃcers are not entitled to qualiﬁed immunity on Wat-

kins’s excessive-force claim.

We move next to Watkins’s excessive-force claim. The Of-

ﬁcers argue that they are not liable on this claim for three reasons.

First, they say that shots that miss a plaintiﬀ’s ﬂesh can’t sustain an

excessive-force claim. Second, they assert they had probable cause

to ﬁre at Watkins based on an imminent threat of deadly harm.

And third, they contend their use of force did not violate clearly

established law. We are not persuaded.

We address the Oﬃcers’ ﬁrst argument summarily. All the

cases the Oﬃcers cite to show a shot that misses a plaintiﬀ’s ﬂesh

can’t sustain an excessive-force claim show only that a shoot–and–

miss is not a physical-force seizure. See Torres, 592 U.S. at 318; Ham-

mett v. Paulding County, 875 F.3d 1036, 1053 (11th Cir. 2017); Carr v.

Tatangelo, 338 F.3d 1259, 1270–71 (11th Cir. 2003). They don’t speak

to the underlying merits of an excessive-force claim. Cf. Flores, 381

F.3d at 396–98 (allowing an analogous excessive-force claim where

oﬃcers shot a plaintiﬀ’s car to move forward). And as we’ve already

explained, the Oﬃcers seized Watkins both by physical force and a

show of authority. See Part III.A, supra.

So we turn now to the merits of Watkins’s excessive-force

claim and whether the Oﬃcers are entitled to qualiﬁed immunity

on it. We conclude they don’t enjoy immunity against a claim that

they unlawfully shot at her.

We typically evaluate whether an oﬃcer has unlawfully used

deadly force by evaluating the factors Tennessee v. Garner outlines.

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44 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

See Powell v. Snook, 25 F.4th 912, 922 (11th Cir. 2022). There, the

Supreme Court held that “a police oﬃcer may use deadly force to

seize a ﬂeeing felony suspect when the oﬃcer: (1) ‘has probable

cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical

harm, either to the oﬃcer or to others’ or ‘that he has committed

a crime involving the inﬂiction or threatened inﬂiction of serious

physical harm’; (2) reasonably believes that the use of deadly force

was necessary to prevent escape; and (3) has given some warning

about the possible use of deadly force, if feasible.” Vaughan v. Cox,

343 F.3d at 1323, 1329–30 (11th Cir. 2003) (quoting Garner, 471 U.S.

at 11–12) (emphasis altered).

But “Garner did not establish a magical on/oﬀ switch that

triggers rigid preconditions whenever an oﬃcer’s actions constitute

‘deadly force.’” Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 382 (2007). “The con-

stitutional test for excessive force is necessarily fact speciﬁc.”

McCullough v. Antolini, 559 F.3d 1201, 1206 (11th Cir. 2009). And “in

the end we must still slosh our way through the factbound morass

of ‘reasonableness.’” Scott, 550 U.S. at 383. In doing so, we again

acknowledge the Supreme Court’s recent guidance: we can’t “put

on chronological blinders” because “the history of the interaction,

as well as other past circumstances known to the oﬃcer, . . . inform

the reasonableness of the use of force.” Barnes, 145 S. Ct. at 1358–

59.

We start with the ﬁrst Garner factor. From it, we have clearly

established that “[a] police oﬃcer may not seize an unarmed, non-

dangerous suspect by shooting him dead.” Garner, 471 U.S. at 11.

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 45

For example, in Gilmere v. City of Atlanta, we held that an of-

ﬁcer violated the Fourth Amendment when he used deadly force

against an unarmed, intoxicated man who “did little to provoke the

police oﬃcers to beat him.” 774 F.2d 1495, 1502 (11th Cir. 1985) (en

banc), abrogated on other grounds by Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386

(1989). And in Lundgren v. McDaniel, we aﬃrmed a judgment where

a reasonable jury could ﬁnd that oﬃcers used excessive force when

“the oﬃcers without provocation shot at a nondangerous suspect.”

814 F.2d 600, 603 (11th Cir. 1987). Similarly, in Vaughan v. Cox, we

explained that “[u]nder Garner, a police oﬃcer can use deadly force

to prevent the escape of a ﬂeeing non-violent felony suspect only

when the suspect poses an immediate threat of serious harm to

police oﬃcers or others.” 343 F.3d at 1332.

Still, this is a broad principle of clearly established law. Plum-

hoﬀ v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765, 779 (2014) (quoting Brosseau v. Haugen,

543 U.S. 194, 199 (2004) (per curiam)) (“Garner . . . [is] ‘cast at a high

level of generality’”). And we have explained that “[t]he more gen-

eral the statement of law is that puts the oﬃcial on notice, the more

egregious the violation must be before we will ﬁnd that the oﬃcial

is not entitled to qualiﬁed immunity.” Goebert v. Lee County, 510 F.3d

1312, 1330 (11th Cir. 2007); see also Echols v. Lawton, 913 F.3d 1313,

1324 (11th Cir. 2019) (quoting Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1353

(11th Cir. 2002)) (A broad “principle ‘must establish with obvious

clarity that in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness of the

oﬃcial’s conduct is apparent.’”).

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46 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

Yet the Oﬃcers’ actions here were particularly egregious. As

we’ve explained, the Oﬃcers lacked even arguable reasonable suspi-

cion to stop Watkins for any crime, let alone probable cause to

shoot her as posing a threat of harm. See Part III.B, supra. And just

as “Garner involved a ﬂeeing non-dangerous suspect in a non-vio-

lent crime,” Powell, 25 F.4th at 923, here, Watkins was, at worst, also

a non-dangerous suspect in a non-violent crime. In fact, we don’t

even see a basis for characterizing her as a suspect for the crime the

oﬃcers responded to. See Part III.B, supra. After all, the initial

crime for which the oﬃcers were dispatched was breaking into an

unattended vehicle on a diﬀerent property than Watkins’s place of

business.

The Oﬃcers also can’t claim any support from the second

or third Garner factors. Because Watkins obviously committed no

crimes, the Oﬃcers couldn’t have “reasonably believe[d] that the

use of deadly force was necessary to prevent escape,” as the second

factor instructs us to evaluate. Vaughan, 343 F.3d at 1329–30 (inter-

nal quotation marks omitted). Nor did the Oﬃcers give any “warn-

ing about the possible use of deadly force” to satisfy the third Gar-

ner factor. Id. at 1330.

Watkins’s alleged use of her car as a “weapon” also doesn’t

justify the Oﬃcers’ shots on this record. True, we have before “up-

held an oﬃcer’s use of force and granted qualiﬁed immunity in

cases where the [plaintiﬀ] used or threatened to use his car as a

weapon to endanger oﬃcers or civilians immediately preceding the

oﬃcer’s use of deadly force.” McCullough, 559 F.3d at 1207. The

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 47

Oﬃcers oﬀer several cases to support that point. See Baxter v. San-

tiago-Miranda, 121 F.4th 873 (11th Cir. 2024); Terrell v. Smith, 668

F.3d 1244, 1253 (11th Cir. 2012); McCullough, 559 F.3d at 1208; Sin-

gletary v. Vargas, 804 F.3d 1174, 1182–83 (11th Cir. 2015); Troupe, 419

F.3d at 1168; Robinson v. Arrugueta, 415 F.3d 1252, 1256 (11th Cir.

2005); Pace v. Capobianco, 283 F.3d 1275, 1282 (11th Cir. 2002);

Clemons v. Knight, 662 F. App’x 725, 728 (11th Cir. 2016) (per curiam)

(unpublished).

But this case is nothing like any of those. Each of the cases

the Oﬃcers cite involved a suspect who apparently disobeyed or-

ders from clearly identiﬁed oﬃcers. Baxter, 121 F. 4th at 880–81;

Terrell, 668 F.3d at 1249; McCullough, 559 F.3d at 1207–08; Singletary,

804 F.3d at 1177–78, Troupe, 419 F.3d at 1168; Robinson, 415 F.3d at

1254; Pace, 283 F.3d at 1277–78; Clemons, 662 F. App’x at 726–27.

Again, though, the Oﬃcers here never identiﬁed themselves. And

they purposely chose to stealthily approach a person who was by

herself in a dark, desolate area with only one means of egress. Be-

cause on this record, no reasonable oﬃcer could have believed that

Watkins was disobeying orders from clearly identiﬁed oﬃcers

when she ﬂed, these cases don’t help the Oﬃcers.

Similarly, no reasonable oﬃcer could have believed that Wat-

kins was using or intended to use her car as a weapon as she tried

to escape what looked like a dangerous situation. For that reason,

the Oﬃcers also violated another principle of clearly established

law in this circuit. “[W]here the plaintiﬀ did not use or did not

threaten to use his car as a weapon, we have rejected an oﬃcer’s

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48 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

use of deadly force.” Morton v. Kirkwood, 707 F.3d 1276, 1283 (11th

Cir. 2013).

That’s why in Morton v. Kirkwood, we denied qualiﬁed im-

munity on an excessive-force claim. There, the plaintiﬀ was “an

unarmed man in a stationary vehicle while [the oﬃcer had] no rea-

son to believe that the man would place anyone’s safety in danger.”

707 F.3d at 1282. And in Vaughan v. Cox, we denied qualiﬁed im-

munity when the plaintiﬀ claimed the driver of a stolen vehicle ﬂed

at 15 miles above the speed limit but otherwise did not drive errat-

ically. 343 F.3d at 1326–27, 1330–33.

Watkins’s case falls neatly within this line of our precedent.

Watkins did not drive erratically but in a straight line out her only

escape path. Cf. Vaughan, 343 F.3d at 1330 (“[T]he truck’s lane was

clear of traﬃc and [the suspect] made no aggressive moves to

change lanes before [the oﬃcer] ﬁred.”). And she acted as any rea-

sonable person in her position would have—she sought to get away

from two men who were camouﬂaged in dark clothing and ap-

proached her in an isolated place without identifying themselves.

She was not a suspect in any crime. Cf. Morton, 707 F.3d at 1283

(“In Vaughan, the driver was suspected of car theft; Morton was

suspected of no crime.”). And as we’ve explained, we must resolve

the dispute of fact as to whether Oﬃcer Davis was ever even in the

path of Watkins’s car in Watkins’s favor. Under that version of the

facts, no one’s life was at risk. Cf. Vaughan, 343 F.3d at 1330 (“[T]he

record [doesn’t] reﬂect that the suspects had menaced or were

likely to menace others on the highway at the time of the

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 49

shooting.”); Morton, 707 F.3d at 1283 (“Morton presented less of a

safety and ﬂight risk than the driver in Vaughan or the suspect

in Garner.”). So at bottom, no reasonable oﬃcer could have be-

lieved it necessary to shoot Watkins to protect anyone from harm.6

Because the Oﬃcers’ actions, in the light most favorable to

Watkins, violated two principles of clearly established law in this

circuit, they aren’t entitled to qualiﬁed immunity on Watkins’s ex-

cessive-force claim.

D. The Oﬃcers are not entitled to qualiﬁed immunity on Wat-

kins’s unlawful-seizure-of-property claim.

Next, we consider Watkins’s claim for the unlawful seizure

of property. Watkins asserts that the Oﬃcers unlawfully damaged

her car when they shot it four times. The Oﬃcers argue that they

are entitled to qualiﬁed immunity for three reasons. First, they say

they did not seize Watkins’s car. Second, the Oﬃcers assert that,

in any case, they had probable cause to ﬁre on Watkins’s vehicle.

6 The Officers also assert that “a plaintiff ‘cannot establish a Fourth Amend-

ment violation based merely on bad tactics that result in a deadly confronta-

tion that could have been avoided.’” See Powell, 25 F.4th at 922 (quoting City

& County of San Francisco v. Sheehan, 575 U.S. 600, 615 (2015)). But “bad tactics”

are different from unreasonable actions. And here, for the reasons we’ve ex-

plained, no reasonable officer would have done what the Officers did. With-

out identifying themselves as officers or warning they would use deadly force,

they approached a person who was alone in a dark and desolate place and

started shooting when she fled. That’s not a poor strategic decision in the heat

of confronting a threat. Rather, it’s reckless and unreasonable.

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50 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

And third, they contend they didn’t violate clearly established law.

We disagree with each argument.

To begin, the Oﬃcers seized Watkins’s SUV. A “seizure” of

property “occurs when ‘there is some meaningful interference with

an individual’s possessory interests in that property.’” Soldal v. Cook

County, 506 U.S. 56, 61 (1992) (quoting United States v. Jacobsen, 466

U.S. 109, 113 (1984)). And in dicta, the Supreme Court has ex-

plained that “when speaking of property, ‘[f ]rom the time of the

founding to the present, the word ‘seizure’ has meant a ‘taking pos-

session.’” Torres, 592 U.S. at 312 (quoting Hodari D., 499 U.S. at 624)

(alteration in original).

We need not and do not decide whether oﬃcers seize a ve-

hicle when they shoot it but do not fully wrest possession of it from

its owner. That’s so because here, the Oﬃcers separated Watkins

from her car and took possession of it. As Watkins stopped her

SUV and exited to submit to the Oﬃcers’ authority, Oﬃcer Davis

ordered Watkins to get down. And Oﬃcer Faulkner secured her

person. In doing so, the Oﬃcers separated Watkins from her car

and seized it.

To their credit, even the Oﬃcers concede that Watkins’s car

was seized. But they say the Georgia Bureau of Investigation

seized it. And because Oﬃcers Yi and Harris separated the Oﬃcers

from the investigation after four minutes from the initiation of the

seizure, the Oﬃcers argue they did not seize the car.

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23-13616 Opinion of the Court 51

We disagree. The Oﬃcers were involved with the interac-

tion long enough to separate Watkins from her car, so they seized

it.

Because the Oﬃcers seized Watkins’s car, we must consider

whether they violated clearly established law in doing so. “Gener-

ally, the seizure of personal property is per se unreasonable when

not pursuant to a warrant issued upon probable cause.” Crocker v.

Beatty, 886 F.3d 1132, 1136 (11th Cir. 2018). But “[s]everal excep-

tions . . . exist to this general rule.” Id.

One exception, which Defendants do not argue applies, is an

“investigative detention” or Terry stop. “The bounds of investiga-

tive detention of personal property are deﬁned by the limits appli-

cable to the detention of a person.” United States v. Virden, 488 F.3d

1317, 1321 (11th Cir. 2007). So “the factors used to determine

whether a Terry stop has matured into an arrest are also useful in

evaluating whether a seizure of property required probable cause.”

Id. But we’ve already explained why the Terry factors don’t support

finding an investigatory stop here. See Part III.B., supra.

The Officers instead rely on another exception to the war-

rant requirement. They argue the exigent-circumstances excep-

tion applies.

As its name suggests, “[t]he exigent-circumstances excep-

tion” allows for the seizure of property without a warrant “when

certain exigencies exist . . . .” Crocker, 886 F.3d at 1136. “The most

urgent of these exigencies is ‘the need to protect or preserve life’ in

an emergency situation.” United States v. Timmann, 741 F.3d 1170,

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52 Opinion of the Court 23-13616

1178 (11th Cir. 2013) (quoting United States v. Holloway, 290 F.3d

1331, 1335 (11th Cir. 2002)).

But the same old problem prevents the Oﬃcers from being

able to rely on the exigent-circumstances exception. When we

view the evidence in the light most favorable to Watkins, she never

put the Oﬃcers at risk of serious injury. See Part III.B & C, supra.

That means the Oﬃcers seized Watkins’s SUV without an applica-

ble exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

As a result, they violated clearly established law. We have

recognized that “[t]he right to be free from warrantless seizures of

personal property, absent an applicable exception, was clearly es-

tablished to the point of obvious clarity [as early as] 2012.” Crocker,

886 F.3d at 1138. And “[t]he exigent circumstances exception was

similarly clearly established . . . .” Id. So we are bound to deny

qualiﬁed immunity to oﬃcers who seize property without such an

exception “[e]ven in ‘novel factual situations . . . .’” Id. (quoting

Jones v. Fransen, 857 F.3d 843, 852 (11th Cir. 2017)). This is such a

case. So we aﬃrm the district court’s denial of qualiﬁed immunity

to the Oﬃcers on Watkins’s property-damage claim.

IV. CONCLUSION

For these reasons, we aﬃrm the denial of summary judg-

ment on qualiﬁed-immunity grounds and remand for further pro-

ceedings consistent with this opinion.

AFFIRMED AND REMANDED.

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