Sigman v. Town of Chapel Hill

• Decision Date: 02 December 1998
• Docket Number: No. 97-1652,97-1652
• Citation: 161 F.3d 782
• Parties: Gary SIGMAN, individually and as administrator of the estate of Mark Anthony Sigman; Brigit Ellen Sigman, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. TOWN OF CHAPEL HILL; Chapel Hill Police Department; Ralph V. Pendergraph, Police Chief; Stephen K. Riddle, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 782

161 F.3d 782

Gary SIGMAN, individually and as administrator of the estate

of Mark Anthony Sigman; Brigit Ellen Sigman, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. TOWN OF CHAPEL HILL; Chapel Hill Police Department; Ralph

V. Pendergraph, Police Chief; Stephen K. Riddle,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 97-1652.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued May 6, 1998.

Decided Dec. 2, 1998.

ARGUED: Timothy Stig Nugent, Nugent, Wilson & Associates, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellants. Dan McCord Hartzog, Cranfill, Sumner & Hartzog, L.L.P., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Kari L. Russworm, Cranfill, Sumner & Hartzog, L.L.P., Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees.

Before NIEMEYER and MICHAEL, Circuit Judges, and FRIEDMAN, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

OPINION

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

After Mark Sigman was fatally shot during a standoff with Chapel Hill, North Carolina police officers, Sigman's parents brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the police officers and the town of Chapel Hill, alleging excessive force in violation of the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and under N.C. Gen.Stat. § 28A-18-2, alleging wrongful death. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on both claims, holding that the police officer who shot Sigman acted reasonably in the circumstances confronting him. We affirm.

I

About 9:30 p.m. on May 22, 1993, Donna Solomon yelled to her neighbors to call 911 to request help in connection with a domestic dispute between her and her live-in boyfriend, Mark Sigman. When Chapel Hill police officers Anthony Brooks and Jack Terry arrived at the duplex where Solomon and Sigman lived, Solomon met them on the front lawn and told them that Sigman was inside the house and out of control and that she wanted the police to help calm him down. She also told the officers that Sigman had recently been laid off from his job and had drunk five or six beers. Although she initially told the officers that she did not think Sigman had access to any weapons, she later told Officer Terry that Sigman had a knife.

When the two officers approached the duplex and knocked on the front door, Sigman told them to "get the hell away from the door." Because Officer Terry was familiar with Sigman, he attempted to engage Sigman in conversation. But as he did, the officers heard beating and banging at the door, and Sigman began screaming, "You had better get on down the road," "Go get on down the road, or I'm going to cut your head off," and "I'm going to kill her." He also broke a glass window beside them. The officers drew their guns and retreated. The two officers then called for the assistance of the on-duty supervisor, Officer Stephen Riddle.

When Officer Riddle arrived on the scene, Officer Terry informed him of the situation, telling him that Sigman was inside the house enraged, was throwing things, and was armed with a knife. Donna Solomon informed Officer Riddle that Sigman had been drinking, that he had cut himself, and that he was destroying things inside the house. At this point, Officers Peter Wan, John McKerlie, and Rebecca Snyder arrived on the scene. As the commanding officer on the scene, Officer Riddle instructed the other officers to form a perimeter around the house.

Officer Riddle then attempted to talk to and calm Sigman, whom Riddle perceived to be "highly volatile." In response, Sigman called him a "mother f--ker," and said, "I'm going to kill you." He threw objects at Officer Riddle through the broken window and reached through the window with his knife "to emphasize his point." Officer Riddle then approached the window, broke the rest of the glass with his baton, and attempted to pepper spray Sigman. But Sigman began swinging a knife at Riddle through the window, and Riddle retreated. Riddle then trained his police car lights on the house and called a special emergency response team for back up. Sometime during this interaction, Officer Riddle asked Sigman to come out, but Sigman replied with words similar to, "If you want me, come in and get me. But you're going to get hurt."

Before the emergency response team could arrive, Sigman stepped out of the house, and, according to all of the police officers, he held a knife in his right hand. He was disheveled and bloody, and the knife he carried was a chef's knife with the tip broken off. Officers Riddle, Brooks, and Terry yelled for Sigman to drop the knife and stop approaching. Although they gave these warnings several times, Sigman ignored them, making statements such as, "Go ahead and shoot me" and "I want to die." By this time, a crowd had gathered along the street behind the officers some distance away and was cheering Sigman on. Sigman continued to walk toward Officer Riddle, holding his knife in a threatening manner. By this time, Officers Terry, Brooks, Riddle, and Snyder had drawn their guns. As Sigman continued to approach and was 10 to 15 feet away from Officer Riddle, Riddle shot Sigman twice in rapid succession, mortally wounding him. Officer Riddle states that, at the time of the shooting, he believed that Sigman presented a danger to his life and safety and to the life and safety of others.

Officers Riddle and McKerlie approached Sigman, who was now lying on the ground on his back. On the ground near Sigman's hand was the chef's knife with a broken tip, which Officer McKerlie kicked away from Sigman's reach. The officers found that Sigman had been hit by one bullet in his abdomen and was now unconscious and having trouble breathing. They administered first aid to Sigman until an emergency medical team arrived. Sigman died in the hospital six hours later.

According to the officers, the Chapel Hill police department trains them in dealing with persons armed with knives. As Officer Snyder stated, "We are trained--twenty-one feet is the closest you let some-one get with an edged weapon because they can cut you or kill you before you can even fire." This policy is confirmed by a police expert, who stated that the 21-feet standard "is based on studies which have shown that an armed individual within twenty-one feet of an officer still has time to get to the officer and stab and fatally wound the officer even if the officer has his weapon brandished and is prepared to or has fired a shot."

Two years after Sigman's death, Sigman's parents filed this action, in two counts, on behalf of themselves and as administrators of Sigman's estate, naming as defendants Officer Riddle, the town of Chapel Hill, its police department, and its police chief. The first count, brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleged violations of Sigman's Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights based on the claim that Officer Riddle acted unreasonably when he shot Sigman while he was about 15 feet away. It also alleged that the police chief and police department trained Officer Riddle in a way that deprived Sigman of his constitutional rights. The second count, brought under North Carolina General Statute § 28A-18-2, alleged wrongful death based on the claim that the defendants breached their duty to exercise due care in dealing with Sigman. The plaintiffs demanded both compensatory and punitive damages.

The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, contending that the officers are protected from liability in their individual capacity by qualified immunity, that the officers did not use unreasonable force, and that unreasonable force was not a custom or practice of the police department. Among the materials submitted, the defendants included affidavits of two police experts who, after reviewing the record, asserted that Officer Riddle did exactly what a reasonable police officer would have done in similar circumstances and what police officers are trained to do in those circumstances.

In response to the defendants' motion for summary judgment and over three-and-a-half years after Sigman's death, the plaintiffs' lawyer located three witnesses, Kecia Roberson, Tejuana Roberson, and Charlotte Davis, who were among the cheering crowd across the street from Sigman's duplex on May 22, 1993. Each of these witnesses signed an affidavit in identical form, on the same date, and with the same error that they observed the incident on May 23, a day after the incident. In their affidavits they stated that pursuant to the police officers' numerous commands, "Sigman came out of the house, with his hands raised"; that they "could clearly see Mark Sigman's hands and that he had nothing in them"; that Sigman was intoxicated; that the officers shot Sigman three steps from the front door; and that based on their observations, "Mark Sigman represented no threat of any kind to officer and that the officer shot him for no reason."

In granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment, the district court stated that the affidavits of Roberson, Roberson, and Davis were not sufficient to create a material issue of fact. The court observed that, "at best," the affidavits created "a difference of opinion as to what the three witnesses observed ... and what Riddle observed and did in reaction to the conduct of Sigman." The court held that nothing contradicted the fact that a reasonable officer would have perceived Sigman as a dangerous threat. It therefore concluded that Sigman's constitutional rights were not violated. The court also held that, because Officer Riddle's actions were objectively reasonable as a matter of law, the plaintiffs' state law claims also failed.

This appeal followed.

II

Sigman's parents contend that the affidavits of the three witnesses, Roberson, Roberson, and Davis, create a genuine issue of material fact and therefore that the district court erred in granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment. They argue that the affidavits create factual disputes as to whether Sigman had a knife when he was shot, as to whether...