Alexander v. Villages of Round Lake Park & Round Lake
Alexander v. Villages of Round Lake Park & Round Lake
Opinion of the Court
Elaine E. Bucklo, United States District Judge *1057In the early morning hours of March 7, 2015, officers Matthew Lyons and Anthony Colon of the Village of Round Lake Park police department responded to a 911 call reporting that a woman had jumped from a window and was lying in the snow. The officers arrived at the scene and found the woman, later identified as Natasha Alexander, unconscious and bleeding. Plaintiff-Natasha's cousin-was in a car parked in the driveway of plaintiff's sister's house, a few doors down from where Natasha lay. Officer Colon spoke briefly with plaintiff, then asked her to get into Officer Lyons's squad car to get out of the cold. Plaintiff got into the car, and Officer Lyons pulled off, leaving Officer Colon at the scene.
As Officer Lyons transported plaintiff to the police station, an argument erupted in the squad car, prompting Officer Lyons to pull over into the parking lot of a nearby restaurant and call for backup. Officer Colon and Officer Brandon Gullifor of the Village of Round Lake Police Department arrived at the scene, and together the officers removed plaintiff from the car and handcuffed her. Later, she pled guilty to domestic battery of Natasha and battery of Officer Lyons. Plaintiff brings this action under
Before me are defendants' motions for summary judgment, which argue that on the undisputed record, the force they used was reasonable under the circumstances; and that even if the force the officers used was excessive, they are entitled to qualified immunity. For the reasons that follow, I conclude that even when all factual disputes are resolved in plaintiff's favor, the record would not allow a reasonable jury to find that defendants violated plaintiff's constitutional rights, and I grant summary judgment on that basis.
I.
Although the parties present starkly different accounts of the events culminating in the challenged use of force, I assume the facts are as plaintiff recounts them wherever the record reasonably allows. On the night in question, plaintiff was at her sister's house for a birthday celebration when her cousin Natasha arrived in a "rageful" state. Pl.'s Dep., DN 55-1 at 44, 51. Plaintiff tried to calm Natasha down, but matters escalated, and plaintiff pushed Natasha onto a couch. Natasha "charged at" plaintiff, "busting" plaintiff's nose.
*1058Plaintiff testified that she told Officer Lyons that she wanted to call her sister to tell her where she was being taken. Officer Lyons then "flipped out" and started screaming that she could not use her "f* * *ing cell phone in [his] car." Officer Lyons pulled over, "smashed the door open," and told plaintiff to "step the f*ck out" of his car. Plaintiff remained "completely calm" but refused to get out.
Plaintiff testified that the officers then forced her out of the car and "slammed" her to the ground, injuring her face, elbow, and knee.
A portion of plaintiff's arrest was captured by the "dash cam" device in Officer Gullifor's squad car. The video recording begins as officer Gullifor pulls up behind Officer Lyons's parked squad car in the parking lot of The Pizza Place restaurant, where Officer Lyons had pulled over. See Exh. D to Round Lake Park Def.'s L.R. 56.1 Stmt.; Pl.'s Dep. at 27. Officer Gulliver then approaches Officer Lyons's vehicle on foot, where one officer can be seen standing off to the side of the vehicle, while another officer not visible on screen can be heard arguing with plaintiff. Plaintiff can be seen and heard screaming obscenities at the unseen officer from within the vehicle. The officer tells her, "I'm about two seconds away from cuffing you." Plaintiff responds, "cuff me, cuff me motherf* * *er," and continues to scream obscenities. The standing officer then opens the rear passenger's side door, and plaintiff yells "get your motherf* * *ing hands off me." An officer tells her, "you gotta get cuffed," and she screams "don't f* * *ing touch me" then begins kicking the officer at the rear passenger door while continuing to scream. The officers can be heard to shout "stop resisting!" multiple times as plaintiff continues to swear and kick. The audio then cuts out as the video shows the officers pull plaintiff out of the car and onto the ground.
Most of what occurs next is outside the range of the video camera. Still, two of the officers can be seen to struggle with plaintiff on the ground for approximately fifteen seconds. Thereafter, the two officers stand up while the third remains outside the camera's view. Several minutes go by, during which time an ambulance arrives. (The ambulance cannot be seen on the video, but its flashing lights can be seen in reflection off of the squad car). The officers then spend several minutes struggling to get plaintiff back into the squad car as she stands at the open rear passenger door, then sits partially inside, screaming obscenities at the officers.
Plaintiff was charged with multiple felony offenses based on the events of March *10597, 2015. She ultimately pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of battery, admitting that she kicked Officer Lyons, and a misdemeanor charge of domestic battery, admitting that she struck Natasha.
II.
Summary judgment is appropriate when the pleadings, depositions, admissions, and other evidence of record show that "there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a) ; Celotex Corp. v. Catrett ,
Defendants argue that the dash cam recordings, together with plaintiff's guilty pleas and her admissions in conjunction with those pleas, establish as a matter of law that the force the officers used in the course of her arrest was reasonable. Plaintiff does not dispute that the dash cam footage "partially depict[s] some of the events in question," but she insists that it does not discredit her version of the facts, and that if her version is accepted, a jury could find that the force the officers used was excessive.
It bears emphasis that plaintiff does not challenge the legality of her arrest (other than the force the officers used), and indeed, she concedes that "a claim ... for false arrest or malicious prosecution would not lie in this case." Pl.'s Resp., DN 62 at 2 n. 1. This is important because "[a]n officer who has the right to arrest an individual also has the right to use some degree of physical force or threat of force to effectuate the arrest." Williams v. Brooks ,
The first Graham factor cuts in defendants' favor. The undisputed record shows that the reason the officers took plaintiff into custody was her suspected involvement in a domestic battery-a violent crime. Plaintiff insists that she was not under arrest when she got into Officer Lyons's squad car and emphasizes that the officers neither restrained her nor patted her down at that time. But plaintiff does not explain how her arrest status is relevant to the first Graham factor, which focuses on the nature of the suspected crime. At all events, plaintiff was clearly in police custody at least as of the time Officer Lyons refused her request to return to her sister's house, see Terry v. Ohio ,
Moreover, even assuming that the officers did not know whether plaintiff was the aggressor or the victim in the suspected domestic battery, that ambiguity at *1060most neutralizes the weight of the first Graham factor in defendants' favor; it does not tip the balance in plaintiff's direction. Meanwhile, the second and third factors-plaintiff's physical aggression towards the officers and her active resistance to their attempts to restrain her-are firmly in defendants' favor. Indeed, even accepting plaintiff's characterization of her demeanor while riding in Officer Lyons's squad car, the dash cam evidence establishes beyond reasonable dispute that by the time the officers attempted to restrain her, she was screaming and kicking at them and thrashing on the ground as they tried to handcuff her.
Plaintiff correctly observes that the videotape does not show a complete picture of the events. Still, any reasonable factfinder viewing that evidence would have to conclude that plaintiff actively resisted the officers' efforts to gain control over her. The Seventh Circuit acknowledges that an individual who resists arrest can pose "an immediate threat" to arresting officers. Williams ,
Moreover, the force plaintiff describes-pulling her out of the car and onto the ground, placing their knees on her back, and pulling at her arms to handcuff her-cannot reasonably be compared to the force officers used in most of the authorities she cites. In Phillips v. Community Insurance Corp. ,
It is true that in Payne v. Pauley ,
III.
Because I conclude based on the foregoing that no constitutional violation occurred, I need not proceed further on the issue of qualified immunity. Defendants are entitled to summary judgment.
The audio device that captured the beginning of the interaction remains off-line, but some audio can be heard at this point, which I assume was recorded by a device within Officer Gullifor's squad car.
Indeed, a claim for wrongful arrest on the facts here would presumably be barred by Heck v. Humphrey ,
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Quendalyne ALEXANDER v. VILLAGES OF ROUND LAKE PARK AND ROUND LAKE, Municipal Corporations, Officer Matthew Lyons, Commander Anthony Colon, and Officer Brandon Gullifor
- Status
- Published