Nevada police not liable in death of 12-year-old hostage, judge says

(CN) — A group of Henderson, Nevada police officers can’t be held liable for violating the civil rights of a 12-year-old boy who died in a shootout after he was taking hostage by a neighbor who had killed his mother and one of their housekeepers.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Gordon on Wednesday dismissed for the second time federal claims by the father, brother and sister of victim Joseph Hawatmeh. The judge said the family would have to pursue their remaining claims in state court.

Joseph was killed in the morning of Nov. 3, 2020, outside his family’s apartment in Henderson. According to a legal complaint from his family, the killing occurred after their upstairs neighbor, who went by the name Jason Neo Bourne, confronted Hawatmeh’s mother Dianne and sister Yasmeen over a complaint the mother had made about noise from his apartment.

Bourne then forced his way into the Hawatmehs’ apartment and shot and killed both Dianne and a housekeeper, Veronica Muniz. He also shot and seriously wounded Yasmeen. A second housekeeper who was in the family’s apartment managed to hide in a bathroom and remained unhurt.

After the shooting, Bourne took Joseph hostage and got into the family’s Cadillac Escalade. He then called 911 from the parked car and rambled for more than 20 minutes to a dispatcher, demanding a helicopter and threatening to shoot the boy.

Nevada police, whom neighbors had also alerted about the situation, soon surrounded the parked Cadillac while Bourne was talking to the dispatcher. The sergeant in charge told one of the officers to “take the shot if you have it.”

After the officer fired a single shot at Bourne, Joseph could be heard screaming in recording of the incident. Two shots quickly followed.

It is disputed whether those shots were Bourne shooting the boy. Just before the first police shot, Bourne told the dispatcher that “I’m [going to] shoot him in the brain," according to the 911 transcript. Joseph is heard screaming “Just please, don’t shoot me.”

Following the two shots, several police opened fire and riddled the Cadillac with bullets.

Gordon, a Barack Obama appointee, rejected the argument that the police violated Joseph’s Fourth Amendment right against excessive force because the boy was never seized by police but was instead Bourne’s hostage. In addition, the judge said, the officers were entitled to qualified immunity because they wouldn’t have known that their attempt to rescue him by shooting Bourne would violate Joseph’s Fourth Amendment rights.

“The unsettled nature of the law on seizures in hostage-taking cases discussed above demonstrates that the law is not so clearly established that every reasonable official in these officers’ shoes would know their conduct violated the Fourth Amendment,” Gordon said. “While the facts of this case are undeniably tragic, the Fourth Amendment is not the proper tool to address them.”

The judge, who had previously dismissed the family’s civil rights claims but allowed them to amend their complaint, likewise dismissed their Fourteenth Amendment due process claim again. Gordon specifically rejected the argument that the police acted with deliberate indifference, disagreeing with the Hawatmeh family that the crime wasn’t “fast-moving” and that police therefore had time to deliberate before the shooting.

“The officers knew that Bourne had a gun and had already shot multiple people,” the judge said. “They knew Bourne held Joseph hostage in a vehicle and was making threats to shoot him while not responding to officer commands.”

“This was a scene demanding decisions made in haste, under pressure, and without the luxury of a second chance,” Gordon said.

An attorney for the family didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling.

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