this girl was celebrating her 22nd birthday cops showed up they ended up slamming her down onto the ground she was injured she filed a lawsuit it got litigated for 7even years when all the way up to the 10th circuit it just settled a couple days ago he's not free to go but you can keep walking back off stay here no man need to touch me you I don't want to throw you on the ground do that what did I do please don't do that okay I'll put my hand behind my head put your hand up on your head right now hey what the did I do ma'am what did I do what the you doing before I give you all the answers which I will which will give you a better understanding of the law of excessive force and how qualified immunity applies to that I want you to put in the comments your prediction about whether or not this is a constitutional violation whether or not this police officer gets qualified immunity and does this woman deserve to be paid if so how much if not why not let me know in the comments all right let's go through [Music] it and just to be clear the description of this video that I'm about to give you and the law as it applies to it is straight out of the federal court opinion it's Undisputed in April 2017 Miss Sarat was celebrating her 22nd birthday at a bar in Fort Collins Colorado at approximately 1112 p.m. two Fort Collins police officers Officer Garrett pastor and officer clamser were dispatched to the bar in response to a reported disturbance involving Miss surat's then boyfriend Mitchell Waltz while officer Pastor spoke with Mr Waltz officer clamser spoke with the bar's bouncer Miss Sarat attempted to exit the bar and quote lightly bumped officer clamser as she walked past him so I got a little I can bring Tyler out here he said that he'd had to tell this guy multiple times to get off him and kep jumping bumping into him onler yeah our our security kept bumping into him sir sir excuse me excuse you mrat approached Mr Waltz and tried to walk away from the scene with him upon learning from the bouncer that Mr Waltz was involved in the disturbance officer clamser yelled to officer pter that Mr Waltz was not free to go hey he's not free to go he's not free to go but you can keep walking officer Pastor began interviewing Mr Waltz and Miss Sarat tried to walk towards Mr Waltz officer clamer quote standing 6 feet tall and weighing approximately 200 lb blocked the 115b Miss serat from obstructing officer pastor's interview back off I'm going to stay here you need to touch me you don't need to touch me you don't need to touch me why on your head put your hand up on your head cuz you're under a W under touching me put your hand no explain to me why you're me what did I do I don't want to throw you on the ground pleas don't do that what did I do please don't do that okay I'll put my hand behind my head put your hand up on your head right now hey what the [ __ ] did I do ma' what did I do he placed Miss Sarat under arrest and held her by her wrist in response Miss Sarat attempted to pry officer clam's fingers off her arm and and pawed at his arms officer clamser then used a takeown maneuver throwing Miss Sarat to the ground to subdue her I don't want to throw you on the ground pleas don't do that what did I do please don't do that okay I'll put my hand behind my head put your hand up on your head right now he what the did I do ma'am what did I do what the are you doing Miss serat quote sustained a concussion cervical spine strain contusions to her face and bruising on her arms wrists knees and [Applause] legs I'm not resisting I'm not resisting I'm not resisting please I'm not resisting please car here I'm not [Music] [Applause] do Edward 276 we need a transport car to trying to get my boyfriend are you [ __ ] kidding me oh my God after the incident Miss tat was charged with obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest Miss Sarat pleaded not guilty to both charges and asserted a theory of self-defense arguing she used physical Force against officer clamser to defend herself quote from what a reasonable person would believe to be the use of unlawful physical Force the jury rejected her theory of self-defense and ultimately convicted her of both both charges in March 2019 Miss serat filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging officer clamser violated her constitutional rights by subjecting her to excessive force during her arrest she alleged that in making the arrest officer clamser used greater force than would have reasonably been necessary to affect the seizure by among other things pulling her arm by her wrist and throwing her face first into the sidewalk after the lawsuit was filed officer clamser ass erted qualified immunity the case went all the way up to the US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals they took a look at the case they watched the video and this was their conclusion Miss Sarat was arrested for two misdemeanor offenses committed in a particularly harmless manner she did not pose a threat to officer clamser or others after he initiated the arrest although she did minimally resist arrest officer clamser alleged use of force against Miss serat using a takedown maneuver to slam her face into the ground was not proportionate given her level of resistance and we therefore hold that the use of the takedown maneuver to slam to the ground a nonviolent misdemeanant who poses no immediate threat to the officer or others based on minimal resistance to arrest is unreasonable and constitutes excessive force under the Fourth Amendment and reaching that conclusion the 10th circuit went over the R factors which as I've explained in numerous videos are three different factors one the severity of the crime at issue two whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officer or others and three whether she is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight regarding the first Grand Factor the severity of the crime at issue the Court held that it favored Miss Sarat because her conduct of resisting arrest and obstructing a peace officer were not severe crimes in color obstructing a peace officer and resisting arrest are both classed to misdemeanors although both crimes may be achieved by violent means taken in the light most favorable to miss Sarat a jury could conclude that she committed both crimes in a particularly harmless manner where the only physical Force she used was attempting to pry officer clamser fingers off her arm and pawing at his arms because these are misdemeanor offenses and a jury could find that they were committed in a nonviolent manner the amount of force used should be reduced accordingly here miss surat's misdemeanor offenses weigh against officer clamser use of the takedown maneuver during her arrest the second Factor whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officer or others is undoubtedly the most important and fact intensive factor in determining the objective reasonableness of an officer's use of force the court must look at whether the officer or others were in danger at the precise moment that they used Force Miss Sarat did not pose an immediate threat to officer clamser or anyone else at the moment officer clamser slammed her violently to the ground instead it was Undisputed that officer clamser held Miss Sarat by the wrist she was unarmed and she weighed 85 pounds less than officer clamser although mrat used minimal physical Force against officer clamser by attempting to pry his fingers off off her arm and pawing at him this did not Place officer clamser or others in any immediate danger and under these circumstances Miss Sarat posed a minimal safety threat at the moment officer clamser threw her to the ground and so the second Grandam Factor weighs against officer clamser use of a significant amount of force as to the third Factor the court evaluates whether the suspect attempted to flee or actively resisted the arrest Miss saratz resisted to arrest is conclusively established by her conviction the court has explained that where plain if acknowledges that she was actively resisting arrest there is no doubt that officers are Justified employing some Force against the plaintiff the level of Miss surat's resistance attempting to pry officer clamser fingers off her arm and pawing at him does not justify a severe use of force in response accordingly although this Factor does weigh in favor of Officer clamser reasonably using some amount of force against Miss serat to overcome that resistance that she provided his use of force had to be proportionate thus the 10th circuit weighed this Factor as providing support for the use of a minimal amount of force thus as a matter of law the US 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held that officer clamser and the takedown that you see on the video violated the fourth amendment that is Undisputed but the problem with qualified immunity is is that it applies in those scenarios where the Constitution has been violated the issue is whether or not the officer gets immunity and that's what ended up happening here although the Court held this was a Fourth Amendment violation excessive force they said in April of 2017 a reasonable officer would not have known that using a takedown maneuver such as this to throw Miss Sarat onto the ground while she was resisting arrest for a nonviolent misdemeanor and not posing a danger to officer clamser would not violate the Fourth Amendment which is sort of insane she wasn't able to point to a case where the facts were close enough that was earlier in time um than when the incident happened she put forth five different cases but they were from other circuits and then three unpublished 10th circuit cases so one of the cases was Shannon versus K and in Shannon when the officers responded to an altercation at a bar which is similar the plth strongly stated to one of the officers using profanity that he owned the bar did not need the officer and ordered the officer to get out of the bar the officer alleged alleged that the plane have poked him twice in the chest the officer then performed a takedown which caused the plff to hit a bar stool and land on the floor but this was the eth circuit the E circuit concluded though it was not reasonable for the officer to use more than a dominous force bare minum against a plff where he was not suspected of committing a serious crime did not attempt to flee or actively resist arrest impos little to no threat to the officer or others but importantly the a circuit there concluded that a jury could find the pl if and Shannon did not resist arrest whereas here miss Sarat was actually convicted of and admitted to resisting arrest so that case is distinguishable and the court basically went through the others shot them down one by one um you can review all of those I will post the full opinion at the blog linked below the point is that the T circuit said none of the precedent none of the prior opinions identified by Miss Sarat would have made it clear to every reasonable officer that throwing Miss Sarat to the ground in response to her minimal resistance would violate the Fourth Amendment and as a result officer clamser is entitled to qualified immunity one silver lining there this was entered this order was entered November 9th 2022 so from that date through now anyone who has been thrown to the ground by a police officer in the T circuit in response to what's arguably alleged to be minimal resistance they could get past qualified immunity using Miss surat's case despite the fact that this officer got qualified immunity just a couple of days ago it was announced in the media that the city of Fort Collins had agreed to pay Miss Sarat $300,000 after 7 years of battling this lawsuit in court but Fort colins chief of police Jeff swaboda said that was not the city or the agency admitting any wrongdoing this settlement is a situation where we chose to avoid the continued expense and ongoing disruption of litigation that has ensued over the past seven years and was unlikely to be resolved even after the scheduled district court trial swaboda said the agency always reviews prior interactions with the community to learn and the agency adjust its practices when necessary however it was not made clear whether or not the agency made any direct changes to its use of force training when it comes to surat's specific case if the officer got qualified immunity why wasn't the case over why wasn't it settled well the reason probably is because the plaintiff also asserted a what's called a monell claim a direct civil rights violation always has to be asserted against an individual the individual officer so that is the defendant in the case you can sue a city or a County under what's called a Mell claim but it's not like um the private economy where you can sue Walmart for the actions of their employee government does not let us do that you have to specifically allege that there is a unconstitutional policy pattern practice that directly caused the event that was committed by their employee so very very tough case to make guess what a city cannot invoke qualified immunity it's not a defense to a city but the problem with that is it's very very difficult to prove that probably was still left hanging out there apparently that was worth 300 Grand the city of Fort Collins Colorado as we sit here today cannot deny that that video shows one of their police officers violating This Woman's Fourth Amendment rights that is the law now that's the law of the land in Colorado in the 10th circuit the court actually looked at it they watched the video they declared that to be an unconstitutional act slamming that woman down to the concrete and henceforth any police officer who does it again will be denied qualified immunity unfortunately the officer in this case got away with it so when the city of Fort Collins says that we're we're denying any wrongdoing notice that they parse the words carefully they don't say the officer did nothing wrong they're saying we did nothing wrong have they changed anything their policy I mean they defended this guy for seven years did they discipline him do they take any responsibility for getting the situation where you know the a court one step down from the Supreme Court of United States says that they their employee violated This Woman's constitutional rights which supposedly he took an oath to protect they hid behind qualified immunity for 7 years they don't admit to have changed anything instead they paid out 300 ,000 and that settlement amount in my opinion is a good one I mean the main stronger claim against the officer got thrown out that wasn't going to trial that the officer was out so it was the only claim left in is the monell claim against the city as I said those can be very very difficult but let me know what you think in the comments again this is one of those situations where you know everyone can have their own opinion but none of this can be disputed that video shows an excessive force violation nobody can dispute that that's the law of the land that woman ended up getting $300,000 in the end that's what happened nobody can dispute that but yet the officer did get qualified immunity here nobody can dispute that it just sort of illustrates the absurdity of the whole qualified immunity Doctrine does it not so thanks for watching you like to go through these sorts of things please make sure you subscribe and check to see that you're still subscribed every day people are telling me that YouTube keeps unsubscribing them and they've had it happen 10 or 15 times I'm sure that's an aberration because the channel has definitely been growing so I'm not saying YouTube is purposely doing that at all but just check it if you enjoy this content remember our rights don't end where your fear begins freedom is scary deal with it [Music]