Reed v. City of St. Charles, Mo.
| Decision Date | 06 April 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 07-2713.,07-2713. |
| Citation | 561 F.3d 788 |
| Parties | Tommy Eugene REED, Appellant, v. CITY OF ST. CHARLES, MISSOURI; City of St. Charles Police Department; Patricia York, individually and in her official capacity as Mayor of the City of St. Charles, MO; Timothy Swope, individually and in his official capacity as Chief of Police of the City of St. Charles, MO; Pat McCarrick, individually and in his official capacity as Field Operations-Commander of the St. Charles, MO, Police Department; Richard X. Fischer, individually and in his official capacity as a police officer for the City of St. Charles, MO; Debra Hymes, individually and in her official capacity as a police officer for the City of St. Charles, MO; William Witterholt, individually and in his official capacity as a police officer for the City of St. Charles, MO; James Schweppe, individually and in his official capacity as a police officer for the City of St. Charles, MO, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Christopher P. Leritz and Anthony S. Brunning, Jr., St. Louis, MO, for appellant.
Paul Simon, Jr., David P. Renovitch, St. Louis, MO, for appellees.
Before MURPHY, BOWMAN, and BENTON, Circuit Judges.
Tommy Eugene Reed appeals from an adverse grant of summary judgment by the District Court1 in this civil rights action brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Officers Richard Fischer, James Schweppe, and William Witterholt (collectively, the Officers); the City of St. Charles, Missouri; the St. Charles Police Department; Mayor Patricia York; Police Chief Timothy Swope; and Field Operations Commander Pat McCarrick. We affirm.
On May 9, 2003, Officers Fischer, Witterholt, and Schweppe responded to an emergency call reporting a domestic disturbance in progress at the residence of Patricia Edgar. When the Officers arrived at the scene, they found Reed in the backyard of the residence, straddling and beating Edgar. According to the Officers' testimony, when they announced their presence, Reed jumped up, fled Edgar's property, and hid beneath a bush in a nearby yard. Fischer testified that he observed a silver object in Reed's hands as he fled and was concerned that the object may have been a gun. Reed testified that he was not hiding from the Officers; he was merely waiting for the Officers to find and arrest him. The Officers testified that when they eventually located Reed and attempted to arrest him, Reed refused to come out from beneath the bush and lie on his stomach with his arms behind his back. Instead, Reed remained under the bush with his hands hidden beneath his midsection. Reed testified that once the Officers found him, he cooperated fully by lying face down with his hands behind his back. The Officers testified that due to Reed's refusal to cooperate, they were forced to drag him from beneath the bush, administer a number of baton strikes to Reed's upper left thigh in an effort to get him to show his hands, and finally spray mace in Reed's face, at which point Reed presented his hands for handcuffing. After he was handcuffed, Reed refused to walk to the police vehicle and was instead carried by his arms, feet dragging, to the vehicle. As for the silver object observed by Officer Fischer, a pair of handcuffs was found near the bush and a screwdriver was found in Reed's pants pocket. Reed testified that although he cooperated with the Officers, they kicked him repeatedly and sprayed mace in his face after he was handcuffed and that one of the Officers struck him in the head with a metal flashlight, causing him to lose consciousness. At the police station, Reed complained of leg and chest pain, requested medical attention, was transported to a nearby hospital, and, after an assessment by an emergency-room physician, was deemed fit for confinement.
On June 16, 2004, Reed filed this lawsuit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the Officers used excessive force in arresting him and that the City, the Police Department, the Mayor, the Police Chief, and the Field Operations Commander (collectively, the City) failed to train and supervise the Officers and knowingly allowed a policy or custom of widespread use of excessive force by police officers. After reviewing the parties' divergent accounts of the circumstances surrounding Reed's arrest, the District Court granted summary judgment in favor of the Officers, concluding that Reed's allegations of excessive force—which were based solely on Reed's own deposition testimony—raised no genuine issues of material fact and that the Officers were entitled to qualified immunity. The court also concluded that because Reed's underlying claims against the Officers failed, his claims against the City could not succeed and the City was entitled to summary judgment.
On appeal, Reed argues that the District Court erred in finding no genuine issues of material fact and concluding that the Officers and the City were entitled to summary judgment. We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the facts and all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Bass v. SBC Commc'ns, Inc., 418 F.3d 870, 872 (8th Cir.2005). We will affirm if there are no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). "At the summary judgment stage, facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party only if there is a `genuine' dispute as to those facts." Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007) (quoting Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c)). If "opposing parties tell two different stories," the court must...
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