White v. Bagshaw

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

VICTORIA CHARITY WHITE,

Plaintiff,

v. Civil Action No. 1:24-cv-00018 (CJN)

JASON BAGSHAW et al.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Plaintiff Victoria White alleges that two Metropolitan Police Department officers used

excessive force against her during the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The officers

move for judgment on the pleadings on the grounds of qualified immunity. For the reasons given

below, the Court grants the motion.

I. Background

On January 6, 2021, White attended a rally on the Ellipse to hear President Donald Trump

speak. ECF No. 6 (Amended Complaint, or “AC”) ¶ 11. 1 She subsequently walked to the Capitol

grounds with other attendees. Id. ¶ 12. Around 1:00 pm, a large crowd overran the barricades on

the west side of the Capitol grounds. See United States v. White, No. 1:21-cr-00563, ECF No. 82

(Statement of Offense) ¶ 4. 2

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The Court accepts the factual allegations from White’s complaint as true to the extent that they

are plausible for purposes of evaluating the motion for judgment on the pleadings. See Ashcroft v.

Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009); ACF Renewable Energy Ltd. v. Republic of Bulgaria, 804 F.

Supp. 3d 141, 148 (D.D.C. 2025) (“In evaluating a motion for judgment on the pleadings, the

Court applies the same standard that governs motions to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).”).

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The Court may take judicial notice of another court’s proceedings. See Jenson v. Huerta, 828 F.

Supp. 2d 174, 179 (D.D.C. 2011); Akers v. Watts, 589 F. Supp. 2d 12, 15 (D.D.C. 2008).

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White alleges that a few hours later, she was “pushed by the crowd into the nearby Lower

West Terrace Tunnel entrance to the Capitol building, where a phalanx of some 40 officers in riot

gear stood shoulder-to-shoulder against the tunnel walls, approximately five officers abreast and

seven rows deep.” AC ¶ 17. Her previous accounting of that day tells a different story. In

particular, when she pleaded guilty to one felony count of Civil Disorder, 18 U.S.C. § 231(a)(3),

White admitted that she “approached the west front of the Capitol Building where a large group of

rioters had formed on the steps and at the entrance to the Lower West Terrace tunnel,” and then

“push[ed] her way . . . toward the tunnel entrance to the Lower West Terrace, which was packed

with rioters pushing forward against Metropolitan Police Department (“MPD”) officers in riot gear

with riot shields.” Statement of Offense ¶¶ 11–12. But regardless of how White entered the tunnel,

her complaint provides a detailed timeline of the alleged assault she endured once inside, drawn

from video evidence incorporated into her pleading. See AC ¶¶ 16–20. Specifically, White alleges

that as she stood stuck between the officers and the rioters:

• Bagshaw “reaches over his fellow officers and violently strikes Ms. White in the head with

his baton five times in seven seconds.” Id. ¶ 20. He then “spears her with the baton two

times” until she “is visibly bleeding from her head.” Id.

• White “is stuck in the crush” between the rioters and the “surrounding officers and cannot

go anywhere.” Id. White is later “struck seven more times by Bagshaw.” Id.

• Bagshaw then “moves his way from behind his fellow officers towards Ms. White to get a

better striking distance and begins another assault. He spears and pokes White with his

baton about the head, neck, and face to inflict maximum pain.” Id.

• Bagshaw “punches Ms. White in the face, with his left-hand, landing five punches in five

seconds, with all of his might, while she is being held by another officer.” Id.

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• White eventually “collapses twice after being tossed around like a rag doll.” Id.

• Finally, Bagshaw “attacks Ms. White as she tries to flee striking her in the face with his

baton three times.” Id.

In total, White alleges she “was severely beaten about the face, head, neck, and shoulders

with a metal baton [by Bagshaw] approximately 35 times and punched in the face five times.”

Id. ¶ 1. As for McAllister, White alleges that he “slamm[ed]” her against a concrete tunnel wall,

“whereupon, inexplicably, his bodycam . . . shut off for some 30 seconds.” Id. ¶ 30.

White was subsequently placed in handcuffs and processed by an unidentified officer.

Id. ¶¶ 22, 24. She was released without formal arrest but was arrested at home three months later.

Id. ¶¶ 25, 44. As noted above, she later pleaded guilty to one felony count of Civil Disorder.

Id. ¶ 47.

White’s amended complaint asserts two counts under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: (1) violations of

her Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, which she brings against Bagshaw and McAllister

in their individual and official capacities; and (2) a supervisor responsibility claim for those

violations against Bagshaw. AC ¶¶ 52–57. The Court previously granted the officers’ partial

motions to dismiss (which White did not oppose), dismissing the Fourteenth Amendment and

official-capacity claims without prejudice. See ECF No. 27 and Minute Order of October 21, 2024.

Claiming qualified immunity, the officers now move for judgment on the pleadings on the

remaining claims: Fourth Amendment excessive force against Bagshaw and McAllister in their

individual capacities, and supervisory liability against Bagshaw in his individual capacity. See

ECF No. 33.

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II. Legal Standard

Under Rule 12(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, “a party may move for judgment

on the pleadings.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(c). “To prevail on a Rule 12(c) motion, the moving party

must show that no material issue of fact remains to be solved and that it is entitled to judgment as

a matter of law.” Tapp v. WMATA, 306 F. Supp. 3d 383, 391 (D.D.C. 2016) (citation modified).

In evaluating a motion for judgment on the pleadings, the Court applies the same standard that

governs motions to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). See Garcia v. Stewart, 531 F. Supp. 3d 194, 203

(D.D.C. 2021). The Court relies on “the facts alleged in the complaint, documents attached to the

complaint as exhibits or incorporated by reference, and matters about which the court may take

judicial notice.” Allen v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., 755 F. Supp. 2d 122, 125 (D.D.C. 2010).

III. Qualified Immunity

White alleges a violation of her Fourth Amendment right “to be free from unreasonable

searches and seizures by government officers.” AC ¶ 53. She brings this claim under Section

1983, which provides a cause of action against any person who deprives an individual of federally

guaranteed rights “under color of” the law of any state, territory, or the District of Columbia. 42

U.S.C. § 1983; Filarsky v. Delia, 566 U.S. 377, 383 (2012). But government actors performing

official functions (like Bagshaw and McAllister) are “afforded certain protections from liability,

based on the reasoning that the public good can best be secured by allowing officers charged with

the duty of deciding upon the rights of others, to act upon their own free, unbiased convictions,

uninfluenced by any apprehensions.” Filarsky, 566 U.S. at 383 (citation modified). That

protection takes the form of qualified immunity, which shields officials from civil liability unless

their actions “‘violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable

person would have known.’” Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 11 (2015) (per curiam) (quoting

Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009)). Qualified immunity thus “protects all but the

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plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” White v. Pauly, 580 U.S. 73, 79

(2017) (internal quotation marks omitted).

Overcoming a claim of qualified immunity requires a plaintiff to show both “[1] that an

official violated a constitutional right and [2] that the right was clearly established at the time of

the violation.” Doe v. District of Columbia, 796 F.3d 96, 104 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (internal quotation

marks omitted). The Court “can begin—and often end—[the] qualified immunity analysis with

either prong of the test.” Redmond v. Fulwood, 859 F.3d 11, 13 (D.C. Cir. 2017). Here, even

assuming arguendo that Bagshaw and McAllister violated White’s constitutional right, because

that right was not “clearly established” given the particular context of the officers’ alleged conduct,

the officers are entitled to qualified immunity. 3

A. Legal Framework

The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons,

houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” U.S. Const. Amend. IV;

Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 306, 311 (2021). Assuming a search or seizure has occurred, the core

question is “whether the force used was unreasonable.” Harris v. Bowser, 369 F. Supp. 3d 93, 100

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Although the Court need not address the first prong of the qualified immunity framework, it is

unclear that White would satisfy it. The threshold question for a Fourth Amendment excessive

force claim is whether the plaintiff experienced a seizure, which “requires the use of force with

intent to restrain.” Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 306, 317 (2021). “[F]orce intentionally applied

for some other purpose” does not qualify. Id. The closest analogous case to White’s concluded

that a different January 6 rioter failed to state an excessive force claim because he had “not alleged

a Fourth Amendment seizure” under Torres. Fischer v. District of Columbia, No. 24-cv-00044,

2025 WL 894445, at *11 (D.D.C. Mar. 24, 2025). In any event, the Court does not definitively

resolve whether the officers’ conduct constituted a seizure. See Pearson, 555 U.S. at 237 (courts

may address only the second qualified immunity prong where “it is plain that a constitutional right

is not clearly established but far from obvious whether in fact there is such a right”); District of

Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 62 n.7 (2018) (urging lower courts to “think hard, and then think

hard again,” before addressing both qualified immunity and the merits of an underlying

constitutional claim).

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(D.D.C. 2019); see also Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593, 599 (1989) (“‘Seizure’ alone is

not enough for § 1983 liability; the seizure must be ‘unreasonable.’”). “A claim that law-

enforcement officers used excessive force to effect a seizure is governed by the Fourth

Amendment’s ‘reasonableness’ standard.” Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765, 774 (2014).

Determining the reasonableness of a particular seizure “requires a careful balancing of the

nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual’s Fourth Amendment interests against the

countervailing governmental interests at stake.” Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989)

(internal quotation marks omitted). That inquiry requires analyzing the totality of the

circumstances “from the perspective ‘of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the

20/20 vision of hindsight.’” Plumhoff, 572 U.S. at 774–75 (quoting Graham, 490 U.S. at 396).

The “proper application” of the inquiry “requires careful attention to the facts and circumstances

of each particular case, including [1] the severity of the crime at issue, [2] whether the suspect

poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and [3] whether [s]he is actively

resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396.

A plaintiff must do more than simply plead that the force used was objectively

unreasonable; she must also establish that her right was “clearly established . . . in light of the

specific context of [her] case.” Hedgpeth v. Rahim, 893 F.3d 802, 806 (D.C. Cir. 2018) (quoting

Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 377 (2007)). This does not require a plaintiff to find “a case directly

on point for a right to be clearly established,” but “existing precedent must have placed the

statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” White, 580 U.S. at 79–80 (internal quotation

marks omitted). Thus, to proceed past qualified immunity, the Court must “identify a case where

an officer acting under similar circumstances as [the defendant officers] was held to have violated

the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at 79; see also Kisela v. Hughes, 584 U.S. 100, 104 (2018) (per

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curiam) (“[O]fficers are entitled to qualified immunity unless existing precedent ‘squarely

governs’ the specific facts at issue.”) (quoting Mullenix, 577 U.S. at 13).

B. Application

White argues that the officers’ conduct was clearly unreasonable under the standard set

forth in Graham. ECF No. 35 (Response) at 9. As the Supreme Court has made clear, however,

Graham “do[es] not by [itself] create clearly established law outside an obvious case.” White, 580

U.S. 73 at 79–80. In any event the Graham factors do not support White. As to the “severity of

the crime,” Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, White actively participated in “the violent breach of the

Capitol on January 6,” posing “a grave danger to our democracy.” United States v. Munchel, 991

F.3d 1273, 1284 (D.C. Cir. 2021). She also admitted to “help[ing] hoist up another rioter” into the

Lower West Terrace tunnel, who then “proceeded to assault the MPD officers” therein. Statement

of Offense ¶ 13. Contrary to her newfound contention that she was merely a “passive resister,”

Response at 9, White thus did “pose[] an immediate threat to the safety of the officers.” Graham,

490 U.S. at 396. And while she was not “attempting to evade arrest by flight,” id., that was

predominantly because she had wedged herself between the police officers and the other rioters;

her inability to flee is not a point in her favor. See Statement of Offense ¶¶ 11–15.

Reaching for a more specific decision, White invokes an out-of-circuit case involving

police officers who shot and injured two protesters with non-lethal ammunition. Response at 10;

Packard v. Budja, 86 F.4th 859 (10th Cir. 2023). As White notes, the Tenth Circuit held in

Packard that it is “clearly established . . . that the deployment of less-lethal munitions on an

unthreatening protester who is neither committing a serious offense nor seeking to flee is

unconstitutionally excessive force.” Packard, 86 F.4th at 870; Response at 10. White argues

Packard’s reasoning applies to her case as well, because she “did not resist the police at all,”

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AC ¶ 35, did not (and indeed could not, because of the crowd crush) seek to flee, id. ¶ 29, and yet

the officers wielded deadly force against her by repeatedly striking her in the head. Id. ¶ 35.

White misstates both Packard and her own behavior. As already noted, White was far

from an “unthreatening protester,” Packard, 86 F.4th at 870—she was an active participant in an

unprecedented riot at the Capitol. Further, the plaintiffs’ conduct in Packard stands in marked

contrast to White’s. There, a police officer shot one plaintiff in the head with a bean bag round

after the plaintiff had kicked a tear gas cannister “away from himself and other protesters, in the

direction of a line of officers.” Id. at 862. The district court found that the plaintiff posed no

“immediate threat” to the officers, who “were equipped with gas masks that protected them from

any gas from that container.” Id. at 863. The other plaintiff was shot in the groin with a “foam

baton round” while wearing a hardhat with the word “media” on it and filming the nearby protest.

Id. That plaintiff “was in a crowd of protesters, but . . . did not pose a threat to the safety of anyone,

police or otherwise.” Id. In other words, neither plaintiff in Packard was shot while engaged in a

riot pitting a mob of protesters against a phalanx of officers in hand-to-hand combat. See AC ¶ 17

(incorporating video of the riot inside the tunnel).

Moreover, the most “directly on point” case cuts squarely against White. White, 580 U.S.

at 79. In Fischer v. District of Columbia, a different January 6 rioter who participated in the melee

in the tunnel brought similar claims against the Metropolitan Police Department. See No. 24-cv-

00044, 2025 WL 894445, at *1, 11 (D.D.C. Mar. 24, 2025). The court in Fischer rejected the

plaintiff’s excessive force claim because he “ha[d] not alleged a Fourth Amendment seizure,” id.

at 11, a requirement this Court has assumed without deciding White can satisfy. See supra note 3.

But, the Fischer court continued, even assuming Fischer had experienced a seizure, “given the

unprecedented circumstances surrounding the violent encroachment of the U.S. Capitol, Fischer

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ha[d] not demonstrated that every reasonable official would have understood the MPD officers’

conduct to violate the Fourth Amendment.” Id. at *11 (internal quotation marks omitted). Far

from “identif[ying] a case where an officer acting under similar circumstances as [the defendant

officers] was held to have violated the Fourth Amendment,” White, 580 U.S. at 79, the closest

possible case to this one held that defendants who engaged in similar conduct were entitled to

qualified immunity. 4

White’s attempts to distinguish Fischer are unavailing. She first argues that by the time

she entered the tunnel around 4:00 pm, the Capitol had been locked down for hours and Members

of Congress had been evacuated to safe quarters. Response at 11–12. Thus, White argues,

Fischer’s invocation of “the government’s compelling interest in ensuring the safety of its officials

during a constitutionally mandated proceeding” is irrelevant here. Fischer, 2025 WL 894445, at

*10. But even assuming that Bagshaw and McAllister knew that Members of Congress were safer

at 4:00 pm than they were a few hours earlier, the Capitol itself was still under siege. Further, the

officers would have had no way of knowing whether the Members’ more secure locations would

have remained secure if additional points of entry were breached.

White also argues that the force the officers used against her violated the MPD’s own use-

of-force framework for coping with “a ‘passive resister’ such as White.” Response at 14. But as

the video makes clear, White was not a “passive resister” in any meaningful sense; she was at the

fore of a mob attempting to storm past rows of riot police. See Scott, 550 U.S. at 380–81 (courts

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The Court does not conclude that Bagshaw and McAllister are entitled to qualified immunity

simply because the Capitol attack was “unprecedented.” Cf. Fischer, 2025 WL 894445, at *10

(“Because the events of January 6th were ‘unprecedented,’ Trump v. Thompson, 20 F.4th 10, 33

(D.C. Cir. 2021), no legal principle ‘clearly prohibit[ed]’ the MPD officers’ ‘conduct in the

particular circumstances before’ them.”) (quoting Wesby, 583 U.S. at 63). Officers could have

violated clearly established law by using excessive force against the rioters that day; White has

just failed to show that the force used against her violated clearly established law.

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“should not . . . rel[y]” on “visible fiction,” but rather “view[ ] the facts in the light depicted by the

videotape”). And even assuming that the officers’ conduct violated their use-of-force framework

in some respects, “[o]fficials sued for constitutional violations do not lose their qualified immunity

merely because their conduct violates some statutory or administrative provision.” Davis v.

Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 194 (1984).

In sum, White has failed to identify any precedent that “squarely governs” the facts of this

case. Mullenix, 577 U.S. at 13. The officers are thus entitled to qualified immunity on White’s

excessive force claim. 5

IV. Supervisor Responsibility

White also asserts a Section 1983 supervisor responsibility claim against Bagshaw,

alleging that he “was at all times during the events complained of a supervisor and superior to the

35–40 MPD Officers in the Lower West Terrace tunnel.” AC ¶ 57. “To implicate supervisory

liability under § 1983, [White] must establish a high degree of fault.” Elkins v. District of

Columbia, 610 F. Supp. 2d 52, 64 (D.D.C. 2009). “A supervisor who merely fails to detect and

prevent a subordinate’s misconduct, therefore, cannot be liable for that misconduct.” Int’l Action

Ctr. v. United States, 365 F.3d 20, 28 (D.C. Cir. 2004).

Bagshaw claims qualified immunity over the supervisor liability claim, so White must

again show both a violation of a constitutional right and that the asserted right was clearly

established. Because she fails to meet that bar on the underlying excessive force claim, White’s

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In her Response, White argues that if the Court does not deny the motion as to her Fourth

Amendment excessive force claim, it “should construe [her] allegations as a due process violation

of the Fifth Amendment under Section 1983.” Response at 8. The Court declines to do so, because

“a party may not amend [her] complaint through an opposition brief.” Singh v. District of

Columbia, 55 F. Supp. 3d 55, 70 (D.D.C. 2014).

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allegations also “fail to meet” the “high standard for alleging supervisory liability under § 1983.”

Lewis v. District of Columbia, 768 F. Supp. 3d 76, 107 (D.D.C. 2025).

V. Conclusion

White admittedly joined a mob that sought to force its way past several rows of police

officers into the U.S. Capitol to disrupt a joint session of Congress. Although her treatment in the

process is harrowing, the Court cannot say that as of January 6, 2021, the use of force by officers

defending the Capitol during an active riot, in a confined tunnel setting, against members of a

crowd pressing into that building, constituted a clear violation of White’s Fourth Amendment

rights. The Court thus grants the officers’ motion for judgment on the pleadings on grounds of

qualified immunity. A separate Order will issue contemporaneously.

DATE: March 13, 2026

CARL J. NICHOLS

United States District Judge

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