Menuel v. City of Atlanta

Citation25 F.3d 990
Decision Date13 July 1994
Docket NumberNo. 92-8803,92-8803
PartiesArtis MENUEL, Individually and in his capacity as natural father of Jessie Menuel, Deceased; Bell M. Scandrick, as Personal Representative of the Estate of Jessie Menuel, Deceased, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. The CITY OF ATLANTA, J.E. Hughey, D.A. Lester, R.D. Scandrick, Individually and in their official capacity as police officers for the City of Atlanta, Defendants-Appellants.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

June D. Green, Overtis L. Hicks Brantley, Amy R. Snell, Office of Atlanta City Attys., Atlanta, GA, for appellants.

Martin L. Fierman, Federal Goetz & Cronkwright, K. Christine Harrelson, Atlanta, GA, Roger J. Martinson, Eatonton, GA, for appellees.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before ANDERSON and CARNES, Circuit Judges, and MERRYDAY *, District Judge.

MERRYDAY, District Judge:

On July 24, 1989, about 12:30 in the morning, the City of Atlanta police department dispatched two city police officers, D.A. Lester and R.D. Scandrick. The dispatch responded to a "911 emergency" telephone call from Bell Scandrick ("Ms. Scandrick"), the sister of Jessie Menuel ("the decedent"). (Ms. Scandrick and Officer Scandrick are not related.) Requesting emergency assistance, Ms. Scandrick reported that the decedent was behaving violently and erratically. 1 The dispatch was denominated by Atlanta's police as "24 violent," which means "violent and demented."

Promptly upon their arrival, Officers Lester and Scandrick spoke with the decedent's brother, Tommie Menuel, from whom the officers learned that earlier in the evening the decedent had become agitated and had choked Artis Menuel ("Mr. Menuel"), her father, who owns the home to which the officers were dispatched. 2 Informed that the decedent remained inside the home, the officers walked onto the porch and knocked on the door. The decedent suddenly opened the door and unexpectedly lunged at the two officers, grasping a butcher knife, swinging the knife ominously, stabbing at Officer Scandrick in a "hatchet motion," and finally forcing the officers to retreat from the front door and off the porch. The decedent slammed the front door and withdrew to her father's bedroom, locking the bedroom door from the inside. Apparently some screams or other sounds of distress continued from within the house, causing the officers immediate concern for the safety of the occupants.

Inflamed by the decedent's attack, Officer Scandrick apparently cursed audibly and uttered hostile and intemperate statements alluding perhaps to retribution against the decedent. 3 Certain evidence suggests that the decedent overheard Officer Scandrick's comminations, but all parties agree that after the decedent's retreat to her father's bedroom, the officers gathered outside the bedroom door in a hallway dimly lit by a naked bulb and tried futilely to induce the decedent's surrender. 4

Faced with the prospect of violence and escalating tension, the officers radioed for supervisory and other support. Sergeant Hughey and Officers Lester and Clark arrived. Members of the Menuel family assured the officers that the decedent was unarmed. Ms. Scandrick recalls her conversation with Sergeant Hughey:

Q: Now, you stated that Sergeant Hughey was asking questions trying to find out what had gone on before he got here. To whom was he talking?

A: Primarily my dad.

Q: Did he say anything to you or ask you any questions?

A: I do recall him asking me who does she listen to best, or who can talk to her easiest.

Q: And what was your response, if any?

A: When she's out of control usually no one.

Sometime after the entry of the police officers into the house and before any gunfire, one or more of the Menuel family asked the police to depart the premises and leave the family to handle the matter privately or with the help of others, including perhaps the DeKalb County sheriff. Officer Lester's account offers important details:

Q: Before you went up to the bedroom door to try and talk her out, before you went up there, I want to find out what you had learned. One, was there were no other weapons in the house, you learned that; is that correct?

A: That's what we were told by the family members.

Q: What else were you told by the family members, anything at all?

A: They wanted us to leave the home. They wanted to handle it themselves. They wanted us to just leave. And at that point, I'm not sure which family member I talked to, I told them that we couldn't leave then at that point because a crime had been committed against an officer.

Q: What did you learn about the perpetrator by these people? Did anybody tell you that she had a mental problem?

A: They stated she had a mental problem, yes.

After some additional consultation, the officers, led by Sergeant Hughey, devised a strategy to capture the decedent. Mr. Menuel consented to the plan, although other family members may have disagreed. The plan was implemented. Officer Miles knocked on the bedroom window, creating a diversion that was calculated to consume the decedent's attention, perhaps to confuse her, and to delay slightly her response at the moment of entry. Officers Hughey, Lester, and Clark penetrated the locked door and entered the bedroom expecting to easily restrain and arrest the decedent. Officer Scandrick stood prepared to heave a vacuum cleaner into the decedent's torso if necessary to stop any aggressive response by her.

As the officers burst through the door into the bedroom, the decedent fired on the four incoming officers with a .25 caliber handgun, which generated a "muzzle flash" five to six feet from Officer Lester in the darkened bedroom. 5 In the next few seconds, three of the officers responded defensively by firing a total of eight essentially simultaneous shots, six of which hit the decedent and killed her. The police's internal investigative report presents a graphic account of the details of this fatal exchange of gunfire:

Officer Miles was at the bedroom window watching the victim until she closed the curtains, he advised Sergeant Hughey of this. Sergeant Hughey, Officers Clark, Scandrick and Lester were in the hall. Officer Scandrick was told to pick up an upright vacuum cleaner and if the victim came out with the butcher knife after Officer Lester kicked the door open to hit her with the vacuum cleaner in the upper body to take her off her feet so they could subdue her. Officer Miles broke the window and Officer Lester kicked the bedroom door open. The victim fired one or two shots from inside the dark bedroom, the officers in the hall retreated and pulled their weapons. The victim came out into the hall and fired once more. Officer Clark retreated in the bedroom across the hall from the bedroom the victim had locked herself in. One bullet hole was found in the far wall of this bedroom proving the victim fired at or in the direction of Officer Clark when she fired from the bedroom she was in.

Sergeant Hughey retreated into the livingroom, closing the door between him and the victim and firing at her through the door. He fired twice one of his projectiles was stopped by the livingroom door jamb, the other past through the living room door across the hall and was stopped by the wall. This bullet may have struck the victim on the finger of her left hand.

Officers Scandrick and Lester retreated back to the diningroom door. This put them to the front of the victim when she entered the hall and turned on them. The victim fired one shot in the hall. Officer Scandrick returned fire once, Officer Lester who was standing in front of Officer Scandrick returned fire, five shots.

The victim was hit a total of six times, once in the face, once in the head, twice in the chest, once in the left arm and once in the finger of the left hand.

From the positions of the bullet wounds and the positions of the officers, Scandrick and Lester it is obvious the lethal wounds were caused by Officer Lester who fired five shots and Officer Scandrick who fired one shot.

No member of the family was a witness to the shooting. 6

In due course, the present action was instituted by Mr. Menuel and Ms. Scandrick against Officers Hughey, Lester, and Scandrick and the City of Atlanta. In those counts pertinent to this appeal, Mr. Menuel and Ms. Scandrick claim (1) that the police officers violated the decedent's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable seizure by using unconstitutionally excessive force in seizing her and (2) that the City of Atlanta unconstitutionally maintained an inadequate system of training officers to encounter and control violent and mentally disturbed people.

The police officers and the City of Atlanta moved for summary judgment on the basis, among others, that no Fourth Amendment violation occurred, even assuming the truth of the assertions by the plaintiffs, and that principles of qualified immunity preclude liability. The district court denied summary judgment. 7 The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the evidence creates a genuine claim that the shooting and death of the decedent arose proximately from a seizure that impinged her Fourth Amendment rights.

In California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991), two police officers pursued a group of youngsters, who were huddled around a parked car and who fled as an unmarked patrol car approached. The parked car departed southerly at high speed and Hodari fled northerly on foot. During the pursuit by the officer, Hodari discarded something similar to a small stone or rock. Momentarily, Hodari was seized and handcuffed. The rock was crack cocaine.

California's appellate court affirmed the trial court's denial of Hodari's motion to suppress, which asserted that the officer seized Hodari contrary to the Fourth Amendment beginning at the moment when the arresting officer ran toward Hodari and caused him to...

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