holding that a reasonable jury 4 could find that shooting the driver in the head was unreasonable if the jury concluded the vehicle 5 was not moving at a high rate of speed and thus did not pose a threat of death or serious bodily 6 injury to the officers or others
How later courts described this case
- holding that a reasonable jury 4 could find that shooting the driver in the head was unreasonable if the jury concluded the vehicle 5 was not moving at a high rate of speed and thus did not pose a threat of death or serious bodily 6 injury to the officers or others
- concluding that an officer should provide a warning whenever practicable before using deadly force and that a jury could find that shooting a suspect in the head with a firearm without warning was unreasonable
- reversing 13 grant of summary judgment for defendant because, unlike in 14 Wilkinson, the officer -- who was inside the vehicle while 15 decedent was driving under ten miles per hour -- “was not on foot 16 next to a vehicle that might run him over at any moment should it 17 have accelerated” and “did not express concern that his partner 18 was vulnerable to being run over”
- recognizing that the inherent safety considerations surrounding traffic stops “have even greater salience” when an officer suspects an individual is intoxicated
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Chief Judge KOZINSKI,
with whom Circuit Judges TROTT, TALLMAN and BEA join,
dissenting:
It’s undisputed that, at the time he fired the fatal shot, Officer Wyatt was trapped inside a moving vehicle driven by a man who had resisted the verbal commands, physical restraints, lethal threats and bodily force of two uniformed officers. How fast the van was moving and how far it had traveled are beside the point. Wfliat matters is that Officer Wyatt was prisoner in a vehicle controlled by someone who had already committed several dangerous felonies. No sane officer in Wyatt’s situation would have acted any differently, and no reasonable jury will hold him liable. The only thing this remand will accomplish is to give plaintiffs a bludgeon with which to extort a hefty settlement. The Supreme Court should foil the plan with a swift summary reversal.