Vegas officers not immune in death of man who called police for help, appeals court rules

LAS VEGAS (CN) — Two Las Vegas police officers who responded to a 911 call from a mentally ill man will have to face excessive force claims for killing the man when they restrained him and knelt on his back, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled Monday.

The three-judge panel confirmed a lower court's ruling that denied qualified immunity to Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Officers Kyle Smith and Theodore Huntsman, finding that a jury could conclude that the pair violated Roy Anthony Scott's Fourth Amendment rights.

"Our caselaw makes clear that any reasonable officer should have known that bodyweight force on the back of a prone, unarmed person who is not suspected of a crime is constitutionally excessive," U.S. Circuit Judge Roopali Desai, writing on behalf of the panel in a 24-page opinion.

"Because Scott was mentally ill, was not suspected of a crime, and did not present a risk to officers or others, the government’s interest in applying force was limited," the Joe Biden appointee added.

Scott called police just after 3 a.m. on March 4, 2019, claiming to have seen three suspicious men outside his apartment. Emergency services knew that Scott suffered from schizophrenia, which dispatchers told Smith and Huntsman when they were sent to Scott's apartment.

When officers arrived at the scene, Scott complied with their requests, handing over a pipe and a knife that he had on his person. But when police asked Scott to face the wall, he panicked, saying that he couldn't turn around because he thought people were after him. The encounter ended with the officers placing their body weight on Scott's back, neck and legs as he struggled against them and begged them to leave him alone.

Soon after, Scott fell unconscious. Paramedics declared him dead after removing him from the scene.

"This was severe, deadly force," Desai wrote in the ruling. "Our precedent establishes that the use of body weight
compression on a prone individual can cause compression asphyxia."

Despite this, the coroner ruled that Scott died from methamphetamine intoxication. However, an expert hired by Scott's family — who sued the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and the two officers in 2020 — claims that Scott died of restraint asphyxia.

The officers had argued that prior caselaw established that the use of bodyweight on a prone subject was only excessive if the individual was handcuffed, which Scott was not.

Desai disagreed, saying that the precedent establishes more generally about using bodyweight force, rather than technical specifics about the restraining.

"Officers used their bodyweight on Scott while he was restrained with his hands behind his back, which is the functional equivalent of being handcuffed," she wrote in the opinion. "And more critically, the officers received fair notice that their force was constitutionally excessive despite the timing of the handcuffing."

The panel also determined, however, that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity on deliberate indifference claims related to Scott's daughter, Rochelle Scott.

"Over seven minutes passed after officers arrived on the scene before they had any physical contact with Scott ... These circumstances gave the officers ample time to consider their conduct before acting, and the deliberate indifference standard applies," Desai wrote.

However, she noted that the daughter did not have clearly established the constitutional right to familial association at the time of the events, and reversed the federal court's decision on denying immunity on the Fourteenth Amendment claims.

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