Jacobs v. Village of Ottawa Hills

• Decision Date: 25 February 2000
• Docket Number: No. 3:99CV7082.,3:99CV7082.
• Parties: Suron JACOBS, Plaintiff, v. VILLAGE OF OTTAWA HILLS, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

111 F.Supp.2d 904

Suron JACOBS, Plaintiff, v. VILLAGE OF OTTAWA HILLS, et al., Defendants.

No. 3:99CV7082.

United States District Court, N.D. Ohio, Western Division.

February 25, 2000.

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Alan S. Konop, Toledo, OH, for Plaintiff.

William S. McCready, Ritter, Robinson, McCready & James, Toledo, OH, Joan C. Szuberla, Spengler & Nathanson, Toledo, OH, for Defendants.

ORDER

CARR, District Judge.

This is a civil rights case brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and related state claims. Pending is defendants' motion for summary judgment (Doc. 20) and plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment. (Doc. 19). For the reasons that follow, defendant's motion shall be granted in part and denied in part and plaintiff's motion shall be denied.

Factual Background

On September 28, 1998, plaintiff, a construction worker, was working at the Ottawa Hills High School, located about a block north of the intersection of Indian and Evergreen Roads in the Village of Ottawa Hills, Ohio. He had made arrangements with his brother to meet during his lunch break, which was from 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon. He testified that he arrived at the intersection at 11:33 a.m., and had been waiting for about ten minutes when defendant Michelle Miller, an Ottawa Hills Police Officer, arrived at the intersection.

Plaintiff also stated that, when he had first come to the intersection, he saw two officers in separate patrol cars. Shortly after plaintiff arrived, the officers left.

Sometime after 11:30 a.m., someone called the Ottawa Hills Police Department:

Caller: There's a guy — a guy on the corner of Evergreen and Indian — sitting on the fire ... he was sitting on the fire extinguisher [i.e., hydrant] ... doesn't look like he has a purpose and I just want to make sure the children are safe.

Dispatcher: What's he look like?

Caller: Um, he's wearing a baseball cap, he's a black guy, tee-shirt, I don't know what else, but I just want to make sure the children are safe up and down Indian.

Dispatcher: He's sitting there on the corner, huh?

Caller: Just sittin' there on the corner.

Dispatcher: Okay what's your name?

Caller: Pardon me?

Dispatcher: What's your name?

Caller: Oh, well. (nervous chuckle/laughter)

Dispatcher: Mrs. Anonymous?

Caller: Yes.

Dispatcher: Okay, thank you, bye.

(Doc. 23, Exh. D).

After this call, the dispatcher radioed an instruction, to which defendants Miller and another Ottawa Hills Police Officer, James Knallay, responded. The dispatcher used the code, "check an adult," gave a description of the individual, and stated that he "may be lost or confused."

Officer Miller arrived at the corner of Indian and Evergreen Roads at 11:47 a.m. She saw the plaintiff, Suron Jacobs, and turned on her rear flashers.

The Ottawa Hills elementary school is located about a block to the east of the intersection. The pupils' lunch hour is from 11:10 a.m. to 12:05 p.m. There is no evidence in the record that any school children were either headed home or back to school during the ten minutes that plaintiff was at the corner waiting for his brother.

After Officer Miller arrived, she approached the plaintiff, and asked him if he needed help, or what was going on. Plaintiff assured her that he was "all right." Officer Miller then asked if plaintiff were waiting for a ride or if someone was going to pick him up. He told her, "No, I'm supposed to be meeting my brother here."

At that point, according to plaintiff, Officer Miller asked, "What's your brother's name?"

Plaintiff said, "Well, wait a second, when you first approached me you seemed as if you were here to help me. Now you're making me feel as if you're here to harass me. What's the problem. I can't sit right here[?]"

Officer Miller said, "No, it's not that. It's just that somebody called in on you." Plaintiff responded, "Called in on me[?] Wait a second, [t]his is starting to seem like some racial stuff because I'm not doing anything wrong."

Then, according to plaintiff, Officer Miller made a comment to the effect of "don't give me that." At that point, plaintiff refused to give his brother's name, and according to his testimony (which is disputed), told Officer Miller that he was going back to the school.¹

Although the plaintiff knew that Officer Miller was still asking him questions, he started across Indian Road toward the High School. Officer Miller told him to stop. Plaintiff continued walking, and Officer Miller grabbed him. Plaintiff pulled his arm away, and, facing Officer Miller, asked her what the problem was. Officer Miller grabbed him again, and he again pulled his arm away. He told Officer Miller she had better not hit him again.

In the meantime, Officer Knallay had arrived on the scene. He and Officer Miller grabbed the plaintiff, handcuffed him, took him to Officer Miller's cruiser, and placed him in the back seat. He was taken to the police station and charged with obstructing official business and resisting arrest.

Officer Miller testified that plaintiff had not been free to leave at any time during the encounter. She justified her actions on the basis of a suspicion that plaintiff was in an area with a high volume of traffic by school children, would not answer her questions, and had quickly become defensive. The dispatcher had told her to conduct an investigation to check on the individual who had been seen where plaintiff was found. She was not satisfied with his answers, which were increasingly suspicious, "as if something were mentally wrong." She had never encountered someone who had "become this defensive and hostile with me."

Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment

I. Claims Against Individual Officers

A. Federal Claims

1. Fourth Amendment

Plaintiff claims that the events culminating in his arrest violated his right under the Fourth Amendment to be free from unreasonable seizures. Defendants acknowledge that the plaintiff was seized, as that term is used in the Fourth Amendment. In support of their motion for summary judgment, the defendants contend, however, that such seizure began as a lawful investigatory stop, and that their actions thereafter conformed to the Constitution. Defendants also argue that, even if the plaintiff was seized unlawfully, they are entitled to qualified immunity, and thus are not liable to the plaintiff.

a. Unlawful Seizure

The Sixth Circuit has frequently described three types of police-citizen encounters: 1) an arrest, which must be based on probable cause; 2) an investigatory stop, which is a limited, non-intrusive detention and requires reasonable suspicion based on articulable facts (commonly referred to as a "Terry stop"); and 3) consensual encounters, which involve a citizen's voluntary cooperation and requires no suspicion. See, e.g., United States v. Dotson, 49 F.3d 227, 230 (6th Cir.1995); United States v. Flowers, 909 F.2d 145, 147 (6th Cir.1990).

While the parties agree that the encounter between plaintiff and the defendant officers did not, at least at the outset, involve an arrest, they disagree about its nature at its inception. Plaintiff characterizes the encounter as consensual, until he decided to leave. The defendants contend that the encounter was a lawful "Terry stop," which entitled them to detain the plaintiff until such time as their concerns about possible criminal conduct were dispelled.

Determination of the nature of the encounter, and the rights and responsibilities attendant thereto, is not dependent on the parties' characterizations. What matters is whether, as a matter of law, the officers could lawfully do what they did.

The first question is when the plaintiff was seized. In United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544, 554, 100 S.Ct. 1870, 64 L.Ed.2d 497 (1980), the Supreme Court held that whether a person has been seized depends on whether, under all the circumstances, a reasonable person would have believed that he or she was free to leave.²

Based on the undisputed facts in the record, plaintiff was not seized while he was sitting on the hydrant before Officer Miller drove up, got out of her cruiser, and came over to him. At that point, no reasonable individual would have believed that he was not free to leave.³ There had been no display of force or assertion of authority or control, and thus no basis whatsoever for a reasonable person to apprehend that he was not free to walk away.

Moreover, under the undisputed facts in this case, a reasonable individual would have continued to believe that he was free to leave while he was merely being asked questions. See, e.g., United States v. Erwin, 155 F.3d 818, 823 (6th Cir.1998) (en banc) (citing Florida v. Royer, 460 U.S. 491, 497, 103 S.Ct. 1319, 75 L.Ed.2d 229 (1983)) ("[a] law enforcement officer does not violate the Fourth Amendment merely by approaching an individual, even when there is no reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, and asking him whether he is willing to answer some questions."); United States v. Garcia, 866 F.2d 147, 150 (6th Cir.1989) ("an officer may approach a traveller [sic] and request to speak to him, and may continue that conversation up to the point that a reasonable person would no longer feel that the person was free to go.").

A reasonable person would consider himself free to leave until he was commanded not to do so or physically restrained. Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 434, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991) ("seizure occurs when a law enforcement officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, in some way restrains the liberty of a citizen."). See United States v. Taylor, 917 F.2d 1402 (6th Cir.1990) (defendant was seized when, after being approached by three officers after leaving an airline terminal, he was pulled back by one of the officers and asked a barrage of questions that he felt compelled to answer); Ramirez v. Webb, 719 F.Supp. 610, 616 (W.D.Mich.1989) (I.N.S. officer seized a father and two sons when...