CA11: No QI for killing decedent for trying to grab Taser to stop Tasering

“This fatal shooting ‘lies so obviously at the very core of what the Fourth Amendment prohibits that the unlawfulness of the conduct was readily apparent’ even without a prior case on point.” No qualified immunity. Cantu v. City of Dothan, 2020 U.S. App. LEXIS 28074 (11th Cir. Sept. 3, 2020):

While being held by an officer who outweighed him by 75 pounds, another officer tased him at least twice in the abdomen. When he grabbed at the taser in an attempt to avoid being tased again, he and two of the three officers struggled over it, but Lawrence never gained control of it. At that point the officer who had been tasing him let go of the taser, drew her firearm, and fatally shot him without warning, all in the space of three seconds. She fired her pistol so suddenly that the other two officers initially did not know what had happened and thought that they had been shot.

This fatal shooting “lies so obviously at the very core of what the Fourth Amendment prohibits that the unlawfulness of the conduct was readily apparent” even without a prior case on point. Lee, 284 F.3d at 1199 (quotation marks omitted). “Simply put, the grossly disproportionate force used in this case was clearly established as a constitutional violation because no reasonable officer could have believed that [Woodruff’s] actions were legal.” Id. Qualified immunity does not apply at the summary judgment stage given the light in which we must view the evidence now. See Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1487 (11th Cir. 1996) (“[A] defendant who does not win summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds may yet prevail on those grounds at or after trial on a motion for a judgment as a matter of law.”) (quoting Kelly v. Curtis, 21 F.3d 1544, 1546 (11th Cir. 1994)).