Muhammad ex rel. J.S. v. Abington Twp. Police Dep't
| Decision Date | 01 August 2014 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 13–716. |
| Citation | 37 F.Supp.3d 746 |
| Parties | Raushanah MUHAMMAD on behalf of J.S., a minor child v. ABINGTON TOWNSHIP POLICE DEPARTMENT et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Olugbenga O. Abiona, Philadelphia, PA, for Raushanah Muhammad on behalf of J.S., a minor child.
Christopher Paul Boyle, Marshall Dennehey Warner Coleman & Goggin, King of Prussia, PA, for Abington Township Police Department et al.
Raushanah Muhammad, on behalf of her son J.S., brings this civil rights action against the Abington Township police officers involved in her son's 2011 arrest, as well as the Abington Township police department itself. The defendants have collectively moved for summary judgment. For the reasons that follow, the motion will be granted.
This lawsuit arises out of a middle-school fight. In September of 2011, J.S. was an eighth grader at Abington junior high school. Joint Appendix (“JA”) 14. J.S. is African–American and Muslim. JA 47. At approximately 12:50 p.m. on September 19, as he was leaving the school lunchroom amid a throng of other students, a Caucasian seventh-grader, B.W., bumped into him. JA 15–17. J.S. testified that he asked B.W. why he had bumped him, and that B.W. replied “It doesn't matter.” JA 31.
The two boys started arguing as they entered the school stairwell. It is undisputed that J.S. followed B.W. up to the third floor, then back down to the second. JA 28, 36. According to J.S., he continued to request an apology for the bump; in response, B.W. spit in J.S.' face and said “F you.” JA 31. According to Defendant Robert Allmond, an Abington Township police officer who served as the “School Resource Officer,” and who viewed a surveillance videotape of this sequence, J.S. aggressively pursued B.W. up the stairs and cut him off at each floor to yell at him. JA 71, 153–57. This portion of the videotape has been overwritten.
The succeeding events, however, are captured on video footage that survives (although the view is partly blocked by the stairwell doors). As the boys near the second-floor landing, J.S. reaches out to either touch or grab B.W.'s book bag. B.W. either turns around or is spun around. B.W. pushes J.S.; J.S. drops his own backpack and swings at B.W.'s face. The boys begin to fight. J.S. gets B.W. in a headlock; B.W. wrestles J.S. against the wall. They both hit and grab at each other and eventually go to the floor—while a befuddled peer looks on from outside the stairwell, apparently weighing the relative risks of proceeding or not proceeding to class. The fight lasts eighty-two seconds. JA–Ex. I.
J.S. was twelve years old at the time and approximately 5'1.? JA 14. He weighed ninety pounds. JA–P8, P10. B.W. appears to have been about the same size. J.S. left the fight with a swollen lip, cuts on his shoulder and back, and shortness of breath. JA 32. He later went to the nurse's office to use his asthma
inhaler; he also received ice and band aids. JA 32, 36. B.W., in turn, reported to the nurse's office with “pain and bruising to his head and upper torso area.” JA 265, 344. Later that afternoon, Angelo Berrios, Vice Principal for seventh graders at Abington Junior High, met with B.W., who had been referred from the nurse's office and who recounted his version of the fight. JA 265–78. He did not know J.S.' name. JA 270–71. Berrios also spoke to B.W.'s mother, who was “highly upset and wanted to explore pressing charges.” JA 319, 324.
The next day, two eighth graders reported to Officer Allmond that J.S. had been involved in a fight with a seventh-grader the day before. JA 136–37, 140–42. Allmond contacted Berrios. JA 143–48. With the new information, Berrios was able to pinpoint the location of the fight and determine that surveillance video existed for the entire interaction between B.W. and J.S. JA 278–81. Berrios reviewed the entirety of the footage with B.W. JA 292–96. During that process, Berrios saved the last portion of the footage as an independent file, which is the video that still exists. The earlier portion of the footage was not saved, and was automatically overwritten a few weeks later. JA 290, 296–97.
Berrios then summoned J.S. and Allmond to his office. The record contains differing descriptions of the precise chronology here. It appears to be undisputed that Allmond viewed the entire video with Berrios and B.W. while J.S. waited outside, after which B.W. left and J.S. was called in. JA 150–53; JA 18. Berrios asked J.S. if he had been in a fight; J.S. said that he had. Id. Allmond then arrested him. JA 18. According to Berrios, Allmond asked J.S. only one other question—“Is there anything else that you need to report here?”—and J.S. said no. JA 305.
Berrios and Allmond called Muhammad to explain that her son had been arrested and would need to be picked up at the police station. JA 179, 308–09. At the station, after J.S. had been fingerprinted and processed, Muhammad spoke with Allmond before taking J.S. home. JA42–44, 180. She recounts that Allmond asked about whether her religious community might provide some support to J.S. JA 44. Allmond remembers that it was “actually a very pleasant” conversation. JA 180.
Soon thereafter, Muhammad went to the school to watch the video footage that had been the basis of her son's arrest. JA 47. She appears to have seen only the portion that Berrios saved.Id. She then met with Allmond, Jonathan Kovaleski (the Vice Principal for eighth graders), and possibly Berrios. See JA 46, 316, 331–34. Muhammad expressed her opinion that the video showed a mutual fight that B.W. started by shoving J.S.; she asked why only her son, and not the white student, had been arrested. JA 47, 183. According to Allmond, he told her that it was because “this was not a mutual fight, this was an assault done by her son on a victim who happened to be Caucasian.” JA 184. He knew that J.S. was the aggressor because B.W. had told him, and because “it was obvious on the video.” JA 184. Muhammad then accused Allmond “of only arresting her son because he was black,” at which point Allmond “ended the conversation and stood up:” “I told her that I would not be called a racist and that this conversation was over and to have a nice day and I left the room.” JA 183, 187.
Allmond immediately called his supervisor, Detective Sergeant Fink, and reported Muhammad's accusation. JA 187–189, 236. Fink had been trained to document complaints of race discrimination, but in this case, because the complaint was “informal,” he undertook an “informal investigation:” He went to the school to watch the video, read Allmond's report, and concurred in his decision to arrest J.S. only. JA 237–38.
Sometime thereafter, Muhammad filed a charge of discrimination against the Abington school district and Abington Junior High School with the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission (“PHRC”). ECF Doc. 31–3, P–13. On November 16, 2011, she received a call from Fink. According to Muhammad, he said that J.S.' case had just come across his desk, that no formal charges had been filed, and that J.S. was eligible for an alternative disposition called the Youth Aid Panel (“YAP”). JA 50. Muhammad told him that she “would feel more comfortable if he was to speak with [her] representative” from the PHRC, and he said “he would call them immediately.” JA 50. When Muhammad later determined that the PHRC had not heard from Fink, she called him back and said that she “felt that this involvement of the police against [her] son was discriminatory.” JA 51. She also told him that Allmond had been “very, very rude” and that she wanted to file a formal complaint against him. JA 52. Fink then told Muhammad that “JS would no longer be eligible for the youth panel and that he was going to instruct Officer Allmond to file the charges.” JA 52.
Fink recorded this interaction in a supplemental police report dated November 22, 2011:2
Right away, Muhammad became very adversarial with me. I tried to explain the Youth Aid Panel to her, and she refused to communicate with me. She told me that if I had anything to say to her, that I could go through her Human Relations case worker, Jeremy Burton. Based on the fact that [J.S.'] mother was not cooperative, I will advise Detective Allmond to file a juvenile petition for [J.S.].
Doc. 31–3, P9–10. Fink knew before he spoke to Muhammad that she had filed a human relations complaint. JA 241.
Allmond did submit a juvenile petition for J.S., which instituted a delinquency proceeding. JA 340–44. J.S. eventually entered an admission to simple assault and accepted a consent decree. Id. He has testified that he did not know exactly what he was charged with, but understood that the result was “a record.” JA 28. The record of the proceeding was later expunged. See Doc. 38, Ex. C.
On February 8, 2013, Muhammad filed this suit on behalf of J.S. As clarified at oral argument, her complaint asserts four claims: (1) a selective enforcement claim alleging, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, that Allmond and Fink arrested and prosecuted J.S. on the basis of his race and religion in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) pursuant to § 1983, that Fink violated the First Amendment by retaliating against Muhammad and J.S. for Muhammad's protected speech; (3) pursuant to §§ 1983 and 1985, that Allmond and Fink conspired to violate J.S.' right to equal protection; and (4) pursuant to § 1983 and Monell, that the Abington Police Department, through its custom or policy, caused the violation of J.S.' constitutional rights.3 The defendants now move for summary judgment in their favor.
Subject-matter jurisdiction lies in this case pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331. In ruling on a motion for summary judgment, a court must “construe the evidence in the light most favorable” to the non-moving party, and grant summary judgment “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the...
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