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Court Rejects Qualified Immunity For Cop Who Arrested Gun Owner Carrying Valid Permit
Waterbury Police Officer Andrzejewski approached the car, knocked on the window, and demanded to see Soukaneh’s license. Soukaneh complied. He also handed the officer his gun permit and informed Andrzejewski that he did have a pistol in the driver’s side door.
From there, it escalated quickly. Andrzejewski grabbed and shoved Soukaneh out of his own car, slammed him on the ground, and threw him in handcuffs in the back of a squad car
While Soukaneh was in the squad car, Andrzejewski scoured Soukaneh’s entire vehicle, including the trunk. Soukaneh ultimately responded by filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against Andrzejewski for violating his Fourth Amendment rights.
Andrzejewski claimed that his “conduct was still justified because he had probable cause to believe [Soukaneh] was possessing a firearm without a permit as he had not yet been able to verify the validity of the permit.” In other words, because Soukaneh “disclosed he had a weapon in the vehicle,” that gave him probable cause to search and seize Soukaneh. In Connecticut, carrying a pistol in a car without a permit is a Class D felony.
Andrzejewski further argued that he had the authority to search Soukaneh’s car because there was an “objectively reasonable basis to suspect that [Soukaneh] was dangerous because of the known presence of his gun.”
Finally, as a fail-safe, the officer claimed that he was entitled to qualified immunity, which shields government employees from any legal liability for violating someone's constitutional rights, so long as those rights were not “clearly established.”
“On this record, no reasonable officer could conclude that plaintiff posed a meaningful threat of being ‘armed and dangerous’ simply because he disclosed that he had a pistol and a license to possess it,” wrote Atherton. “Any contrary holding would make it practically impossible for the lawful owner of a firearm to maintain a Fourth Amendment right to privacy in his or her automobile.”