3rd Circuit overturns Qualified Immunity from ND

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DontTreadOnMe
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3rd Circuit overturns Qualified Immunity from ND

Post by DontTreadOnMe »

This was an appeal of a district court ruling granting qualified immunity for Richard Schroeter when he, in his role as PA state police firearms instructor, pointed a gun at rookie Trooper David Kedra, shooting and killing him.

TL;DR version: Intentionally pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger, without checking whether or not it's loaded first, constitutes an "obvious risk of harm". As an instructor his "actual knowledge" of the risk can be inferred. There was already a previously established "individual’s right not to be subjected, defenseless, to a police officer’s demonstration of the use of deadly force in a manner contrary to all applicable safety protocols."


The lower court granted qualified immunity under a couple of theories, but IMO the important point is from the appeals court's ruling overturning that immunity:
First, the complaint points to the obvious risk of harm
in pointing the muzzle of a gun at another person and pulling
the trigger, while skipping any kind of safety check.
Mindful that Schroeter was a firearms instructor, the court added:
Thus, even if, hypothetically, the obviousness of the risk
here would not be sufficient to impute actual knowledge to a
layperson, the combination of obviousness with Schroeter’s
specialized training and expertise in firearms safety is easily
sufficient to give rise to an inference of actual knowledge of risk.
As to whether the conduct was mere negligence:
when Schroeter pointed his gun at Kedra at close
range and deliberately pulled the trigger without even
once checking whether the gun was loaded, he acted
with subjective deliberate indifference, i.e., actual
awareness of a substantial risk of serious harm, lying
“somewhere between intent . . . and negligence.”
As to whether there was previous precedent that "clearly established" this behavior would overcome qualified immunity:
We are persuaded that Schroeter had such fair warning
at the time of the shooting. This was not merely an accidental
discharge of a firearm that happened to be “point[ed] . . . at
another officer” at the time. Concurrence at 1. Instead, at a
training Kedra was required to attend, he was subjected to his
training instructor contravening each and every firearm safety
protocol by skipping over both required safety checks, treating
the firearm as if it were unloaded, pointing the firearm directly
at Kedra, and pulling the trigger.
Under that case law, no reasonable officer who was
aware of the lethal risk involved in demonstrating the use of
deadly force on another person and who proceeded to conduct
the demonstration in a manner directly contrary to known
safety protocols could think his conduct was lawful.
Lastly, the court pointed to similar rulings from other circuit courts, including this one:
Grandstaff v. City of Borger, 767 F.2d 161, 167–68
(5th Cir. 1985) (holding it was clearly established that the use
of “deadly force, in conscious disregard of substantial risk of
harm to innocent parties” was a constitutional due process
violation).
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