CA11: The beating of ptf to “subdue” him after flight from officer was reasonable

Defendant fled from an officer reaching into his truck to stop him from leaving. Ultimately he wrecked his truck. Despite his desire to surrender, “he noticed a small retention pond and — for reasons he asserts are unknown even to him — waded into its center.” When he came out, he was “subdued” resulting in various injuries and being Tased while on the ground. Even on the summary judgment stage, they weren’t so unreasonable as to deny qualified immunity. Mobley v. Palm Beach County Sheriff Dep’t, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 6094 (11th Cir. April 15, 2015):

In those circumstances, five of the factors we consider from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene — severity of the crime, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to safety, whether he is actively resisting or attempting to evade arrest, the need for the application of force, and the relationship between the need and amount of force used — weigh against Mobley. See Graham, 490 U.S. at 396, 109 S. Ct. at 1872; Lee, 284 F.3d at 1198. The only factor on which Mobley has alleged facts arguably in his favor is the extent of injury inflicted. See Lee, 284 F.3d at 1198. Mobley contends that he suffered a broken nose, broken teeth, cuts, bruises, and ongoing psychological damage from the officers’ actions during his arrest. Those alleged injuries are certainly not trivial. But as we have pointed out, “the typical arrest involves some force and injury.” Reese, 527 F.3d 1272. When more force is required to effect an arrest without endangering officer safety, the suspect will likely suffer more severe injury, but that alone does not make the use of that amount of force unreasonable. (If it did, deadly force could never be used no matter what the circumstances were.) Even assuming, as we must at the summary judgment stage, that Mobley’s alleged injuries did not occur when he wrecked his truck, the injuries he suffered were not disproportionate to the force that the officers reasonably could have believed was required to subdue him.