Wright v. City of Euclid

• Citation: 962 F.3d 852
• Decision Date: 18 June 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-3452,19-3452
• Parties: Lamar WRIGHT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF EUCLID, OHIO ; Kyle Flagg; Vashon Williams, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

962 F.3d 852

Lamar WRIGHT, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.CITY OF EUCLID, OHIO ; Kyle Flagg; Vashon Williams, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 19-3452

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: January 28, 2020

Decided and Filed: June 18, 2020

ARGUED: Jacqueline C. Greene, FRIEDMAN & GILBERT, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Frank H. Scialdone, MAZANEC, RASKIN AND RYDER CO., L.P.A., Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Jacqueline C. Greene, Sarah Gelsomino, Terry H. Gilbert, FRIEDMAN & GILBERT, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellant. Frank H. Scialdone, James A. Climer, John D. Pinzone, MAZANEC, RASKIN AND RYDER CO., L.P.A., Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellees.

Before: MERRITT, CLAY, and BUSH, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

JOHN K. BUSH, Circuit Judge.

This appeal involves a Chris Rock video and a cartoon, but it is no laughing matter. In fact, this case raises a gravely important issue—police use of force—that has dominated the nation's attention in recent weeks. Lamar Wright, an African American man, brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 of unconstitutional excessive force, false arrest, malicious prosecution, and municipal liability, along with state-law claims, relating to the actions of certain police officers and other officials employed by the City of Euclid, Ohio.

The police officers, in plain clothes, approached Wright's parked SUV with weapons drawn. Thinking he was about to be robbed, Wright tried to back up the vehicle to get away. A flash of a badge made him realize that the men he thought were about to rob him were the police. Wright stopped the SUV, and the officers pulled open the driver's side door. Wright had no weapon, and the officers holstered theirs. Nonetheless, they simultaneously deployed a taser against him and pepper-sprayed him at point-blank range, all while he remained seated in the vehicle. Wright had trouble getting out of the SUV because of a colostomy bag stapled to the right side of his abdomen. He was recovering from a medical operation for diverticulitis. The police aggravated the staples from his surgery, causing bleeding from around the bag.

The officers then arrested Wright even though there was arguably no probable cause for the arrest. The officers designated Wright's arrest as arising from a drug investigation, even though they found no drugs on him. This designation resulted in Wright's being detained for more than nine hours and subjected to an intrusive body scan for drugs well after the officers knew of Wright's medical condition. The scan revealed no drugs, and no drug-related charges were ever brought against him.

The district court granted summary judgment to the officers on the basis of qualified immunity, and to the City based on Monell v. Department of Social Services , 436 U.S. 658, 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). As explained below, we disagree with the district court's qualified immunity analysis. With respect to the Monell claim, the evidence against the City includes the Chris Rock video, played as part of its use-of-force training for officers, in which the comedian makes remarks about Rodney King and police misconduct that are highly inappropriate for law-enforcement instruction. The proof also includes an offensive cartoon in the City's police-training manual that portrays an officer in riot gear beating a prone and unarmed civilian with a club, with the caption "protecting and serving the poop out of you." R. 23 at PageID 808. Based on this evidence and more, we find that Wright has introduced sufficient evidence of municipal policy to satisfy Monell .

For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM in part and REVERSE in part the district court's judgment, and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

A. Wright's Stop, Arrest and Experience in Custody

On November 4, 2016, at around 6:00 p.m., Lamar Wright pulled an SUV onto a residential driveway off of 207th Street in Euclid, Ohio. After Wright rolled down his window, conversation ensued with a friend who stood outside the residence. The friend never came over to the SUV, and Wright never exited the vehicle. Their visit lasted for about a minute.

Unbeknownst to Wright and his friend, plain-clothed Officers Kyle Flagg and Vashon Williams, in an unmarked vehicle, were surveilling the friend's home based on reports of illegal drug activity in the area and at that residence in particular. The officers identified Wright's vehicle as a rented Ford Edge SUV. Based on the short amount of time Wright spent at the house, the officers suspected that he may have been involved in a drug transaction.

After Wright pulled out of the driveway, Flagg and Williams followed him. He turned right onto Recher Avenue and then left onto East 212th Street. The officers maintain that at both turns, Wright failed to use his turn signal, but there is no dash-cam footage or other evidence to confirm the officers’ word. Wright insists that he did use his turn signal in both instances.

The situation escalated after Wright pulled into a second driveway to answer a text message from his girlfriend. While Wright texted in the SUV, the officers exited their vehicle, drawing their guns as they approached the SUV. One of the men caught Wright's eye when he glanced up from his texting. In his side mirror, Wright could see this man dressed in dark clothing with a gun pointed at the SUV. Believing that he was about to be robbed, Wright dropped his cellphone in the center console and threw the car into reverse. Glancing to his left, he saw another armed man, but this time he noticed a badge. Wright heard the men yell: "Shut the car off!" and "Open the door!" Now realizing that the men were police officers, he put the car in park and put his hands up. These events are corroborated by the body-cam footage. At this point, Flagg stood beside the driver's side door while Williams was next to the front passenger door. Both officers holstered their guns.

Next, Flagg yanked the driver's side door open and demanded that Wright shut off the vehicle. Wright complied and then raised his hands once more. Flagg grabbed Wright's left wrist, twisting his arm behind his back. The officer then attempted to gain control of Wright's right arm in order to handcuff him behind his back while he remained seated in the vehicle. Flagg was unsuccessful in his efforts. As Flagg continued to twist the left arm, Wright repeatedly exclaimed that the officer was hurting him, to which Flagg responded, "let me see your hand," apparently referring to Wright's right hand.

Flagg then tried to pull Wright from the vehicle, but the latter had difficulty getting out. As noted, Wright had recently undergone surgery for diverticulitis, which required staples in his stomach and a colostomy bag attached to his abdomen. Though the officers apparently could not see the bag and staples, these items prevented Wright from easily moving from his seat. Wright placed his right hand on the center console of the car to better situate his torso to exit the car. By this point Williams had moved over to stand behind Flagg on the driver's side. Williams responded to Wright's hand movement by reaching around Flagg to pepper-spray Wright at point-blank range. Flagg simultaneously deployed his taser into Wright's abdomen. The besieged detainee finally managed to exit the car with his hands up. He then was forced face down on the ground, where he explained to officers that he had a "shit bag" on. Officer Williams next handcuffed Wright while he was on the ground.

Wright was bleeding from the staples that attached the colostomy bag to his abdomen. The bag was now visible to Williams, who would testify that he "was kind of leery of getting some sort of biohazard on [him]." R. 24 at PageID 938. The officers had Wright sit on the trunk of his car while they called an ambulance. As the body cam continued to record, Flagg made various arguably self-serving statements, including that "[Wright] was reaching like he had a f***ing gun," and that Flagg had been afraid that Wright was going to shoot him. Wright did not have a gun, nor did he have any drugs or other contraband. The officers conceded that they did not have probable cause to arrest Wright until after they believed he was resisting, and that they had not seen Wright engage in any illegal activity prior to the arrest apart from his alleged failures to use his turn signal. They arrested Wright for the misdemeanors of obstructing official business and resisting arrest.

After Wright's arrest, a hospital doctor treated him for bleeding in his abdomen because of the stress placed on the staples around his colostomy bag. Wright refused to submit to an x-ray because of his recent surgery. The officers responded by demanding a CT scan of Wright's abdomen, but the doctors refused to perform the scan after consulting with the hospital's legal department. Wright was then discharged from the hospital and taken to the Euclid jail.

At his 10:45 p.m. booking, Wright was charged with the two misdemeanors for which he was arrested (obstructing official business and resisting arrest), along with two other offenses (criminal trespass and failure to use a turn signal). Despite the fact that Wright had no drugs when he was arrested and was not charged with any drug-related offenses, the officers designated Wright's arrest as stemming from a drug investigation. Flagg acknowledged that he knew that this designation would result in Wright's being subjected to additional, more thorough searches.

Wright posted bond between 11:00 p.m. and midnight, but he still was not released from police custody. As Wright was attempting to leave the Euclid jail, a corrections officer told him that he would be taken to the Cuyahoga County jail for a full body scan to see if he was hiding drugs in his abdomen. Shortly after 1:00 a.m., he arrived at this next facility, where jail staff searched him using a body scanner. The search turned up nothing. Wright finally was released from custody at 3:55...