foreign [Music] welcome to audit the audit where we sort out The Who and the what and the right and wrong of police interactions this episode covers the Fourth Amendment excessive force and suspect descriptions and is brought To Us by Don Andre investigations Channel be sure to check out the description below and give them the credit that they deserve on January 20th 2021 40 year old piano teacher Jamal Williams was eating lunch in his vehicle which was parked on the street adjacent to a park in Hacienda Heights California when Deputy Bruno de Oliveira and Deputy Alexander tavali of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department approached his vehicle the deputies were responding to an alleged burglary that had occurred about a half mile away from Mr Williams's vehicle involving two black male suspects in their 20s where one suspect Got Away on foot the interaction that followed was captured on both officers body cameras Hands on the Wheel what's going on you live around here you match the description of somebody okay that just committed a burglary in the area okay you're on camera is your is your body camera yes we'll explain everything to you okay just step out of the car being detained for a burglary investigation okay sir no no no no no no do you live in the area I'm not answering any questions I want my lawyer okay okay right now all right sit by the car when the officers first approached Mr Williams Deputy de Oliveira immediately opens the driver's side door and orders Mr Williams to step out of the vehicle a few seconds later after Mr Williams responds that he will not exit the vehicle Deputy tavali opens his passenger side door and leans into the vehicle multiple times we will examine whether the deputies had the Reasonable Suspicion necessary to detain Mr Williams later in this episode but assuming for the sake of argument that they did it is likely that a court would determine that the officers were within their authority to order Mr Williams to exit his vehicle as we have discussed before here on ATA the Supreme Court held in the 1977 case of Pennsylvania versus Mims that an officer quote May as a matter of course order the driver of a lawfully stopped car to exit his vehicle now although the officers did not stop Mr Williams's car as he was already sitting in his parked vehicle the second appellate District of the court of appeal of California held in the 2013 case of P people versus McLaughlin that when officers entertained reasonable suspicion that an individual sitting in a legally parked vehicle was involved in a burglary in progress a half block away they were justified in removing her from her car and it is likely that a court would reach the same conclusion here however it is also probable that a court would find that the officers violated the fourth amendment by opening Mr Williams's car door and leaning into his vehicle the Supreme Court held in the 1986 case of New York versus class that opening a door and entering the Interior Space of a vehicle constitutes a fourth amendment search and as such is subject to the same reasonableness standard applied to other police searches and seizures in the 2020 case of United States versus gumezi the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which has jurisdiction over California found that an officer's opening of a car door and leaning into the car constituted an unlawful search because while the officer had Reasonable Suspicion sufficient to justify a traffic stop he he lacked quote probable cause or any other particularized justification such as a reasonable belief that the driver poses a danger to open the door to the vehicle and lean inside although the court recognized that an officer may open a vehicle door when there are quote particularized reasons for the officers to fear danger such as when officers were responding to a reported shooting the passengers in the car made furtive movements as the officers approached and the car's windows were so Darkly tinted that they prevented the officers from having a clear view of the car's occupants it concluded that the officer in the gumezi case did not have any reason to fear that the driver might be dangerous likewise in this situation aside from the fact that they were investigating a burglary Deputy de Oliveira had no reason to believe that Mr Williams was dangerous when he opened his driver's side door and it seems unlikely that a court would find that his immediate passive resistance to the order to exit the vehicle would give Deputy tavali a sufficient justification to open the passenger door and lean in when he did so no man okay sir call your supervisor call your supervisor dude I don't give you consent to touch me I don't give you confessions Deputy Oliveira and Deputy tavali attempt to physically remove Mr Williams from the vehicle and he struggles against them for a few seconds until another officer threatens to tase him at which point he allows the officers to remove him from the vehicle as the U.S District Court in the Northern District of California explained in the 2017 case of Lawrence versus city of San Francisco because police officers are not constitutionally required to use the least intrusive means available to them quote courts have recognized that officers may use reasonable Force to remove an uncooperative individual from a vehicle similarly in the 2008 case of Whistler versus City of Fresno the district court in the eastern district of California held that pulling an individual who had not behaved in an assaultive manner but refused to comply with demands to exit the vehicle out of a vehicle placing him on the ground and pinning one of his hands to his chest constituted a low amount of force that was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment however in this situation Mr Williams appeared to be in the process of complying with the order to exit the vehicle as he asked the deputies to hold on so he could film the interaction with his cell phone when the deputies immediately started pulling at him from both directions and claiming that he was being quote aggressive and quote resisting despite the fact that they had informed him he was permitted to film given this factual distinction even assuming that the officers had the Reasonable Suspicion necessary to order Mr Williams to exit the vehicle in the first place it is possible that a court could determine that the officer's initial use of force against Mr Williams was unreasonable and constitutionally excessive likewise if the officer who threatened to tase Mr Williams had actually deployed his taser in response to Mr Williams's attempts to remain in the vehicle the use of the taser could also constitute excessive force in the 2010 case of Brian vs McPherson the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that an officer used excessive force when he tased an individual who exited his vehicle during a traffic stop after the officer had ordered him to stay in his vehicle in reaching this conclusion the court explained that although there is a distinction between passive resistance such as remaining seated refusing to move and refusing to bear weight despite police orders to the contrary and active resistance now quoting resistance should not be understood as a binary state with resistance being either completely passive or active rather it runs the gamut from the purely passive protester who simply refuses to stand to the individual who is physically assaulting the officer the court also argued that quote even purely passive resistance can support the use of some Force but the level of force an individual's resistance will support is dependent on the factual circumstances underlying that resistance and ultimately concluded that the behavior of the individual who was tased was more on the passive end of the spectrum and therefore provided little support for a use of significant Force such as a taser considering this case law it is entirely possible that a court could conclude that Mr Williams's mostly passive resistance would not justify the use of a taser under these circumstances hey you got any onions converter can you record this recording we all have cameras these guys are ridiculous yeah we are yeah is your name Jamal I don't answer the question okay all right cool and he refused to get out and all we did was just control holes and try to pull them out once we had him completely out of the car then I just did a little takedown so once he was on down that's when they showed up the deputy explains that the officers approached and detained Mr Williams because they believe that he matched the description of a nearby burglary suspect that escaped on foot the suspect was described as a black male in his early 20s who was approximately six foot one or six foot two and wearing a blue hat with all black clothing and possibly a red t-shirt underneath while Mr Williams was 40 years old sitting in a vehicle so his height was unknown and wearing a maroon sweater with a dark gray t-shirt underneath and dark blue sweatpants now before exploring the legality of the officer's seizure of Mr Williams in this situation it is important to understand that the fourth amendment is not always violated when an officer arrests or detains the wrong individual based on a suspect description as the Supreme Court explained in the 2014 case of Hein versus North Carolina quote if officers with probable cause to arrest the suspect mistakenly arrest an individual matching the suspect's description neither the seizure nor an accompanying search of the arrestee would be unlawful however the court also noted that the fourth amendment requires such mistakes of fact to be quote unquote reasonable and as the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals clarified in the 2002 case of Grant versus City of Long Beach quote under the law of this circuit mere resemblance to a general description is not enough to establish probable cause this statement of law was derived from the 1996 case of Washington versus Lambert where the ninth circuit held that officers did not have probable cause to arrest two black men based on quote the purported general similarity of their physical characteristics to those of the actual suspects two African-American males one reasonably short and one reasonably tall in reaching this decision the court reasoned that the descriptions were quote exceedingly vague in general because now quoting again there were for example no specific descriptive features such as facial hair or scars and that the individuals who were arrested quote did not even match the few physical details that did accompany the general physical descriptions it should be noted that while Mr Williams was found within a half mile of a recent burglary the suspects in the Lampard case were not encountered in the vicinity of approximate crime scene and this crucial distinction could cause a court to reach a different conclusion under these circumstances however in addition to determining that no probable cause existed the ninth circuit also stated in the Lambert case that quote it is extremely questionable whether the tenuous General physical similarities give rise to even the Reasonable Suspicion necessary to make a Terry stop but because the parties in the appeal did not raise that issue the court did not reach a conclusion on this issue similarly in the 2014 case of Hampton versus city of Oakland the U.S District Court in the Northern District of California held that a reasonable jury could conclude that an officer did not possess the Reasonable Suspicion necessary to conduct an investigatory stop on a black woman who was wearing a white shirt based on her purported resemblance to a cell phone robber every suspect who was described as quote an African-American woman in her 20s who was wearing a white T-shirt her car's similarity to the suspect's car and her presence in an area where the stolen cell phone had last been tracked based on this precedent it is certainly possible that a judge or jury could conclude that the officers did not have probable cause to arrest Mr Williams or even the Reasonable Suspicion necessary to detain him oh no I think it is okay well you need this hey if we take these off are you gonna cause a Ferrari to kick any windows out anything like that I don't answer questions I don't give you content to go in my car and check my car you're violating my fourth amendment constitutional right we're gonna sink them in the car yeah all right so I think we you guys can connect just tell me your name so we can talk tell me right now find a car and play with it okay we'll talk when you get to your house back then I don't believe you have you finished the thesis training yeah no I know I'm gonna research the vehicle and see if the mask that the suspect was seen on picture that was taken by the informant is inside the car after the deputies concluded that Mr Williams was not the burglary suspect they were looking for they informed him that they were still taking him to jail and he was charged with resisting an executive officer in violation of section 69 of the California Penal Code which prohibits knowingly resisting by the use of force or violence an officer in the performance of his or her duties now although Mr Williams's physical resistance to the deputy's attempts to remove him from the vehicle was likely sufficient to support a conviction under this statute as indicated by the jury instructions for this offense California law also requires that the officer be lawfully performing his or her duties at the time of the resistance and an individual cannot be convicted of violating this statute if the officer was unlawfully detaining them or using unreasonable or excessive force against them the resisting charge against Mr Williams was eventually dismissed although it took nearly a year for the charge to be dropped after the encounter Mr Williams filed complaint with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department and Lieutenant tree Huang investigated the incident and concluded that Deputy de Oliveira and Deputy tavali did nothing wrong on January 17 2022 Mr Williams filed a lawsuit against the officers involved the Los Angeles County Sheriff's department and Los Angeles County and on April 15 2022 he voluntarily dismissed the case after reaching a settlement for an undisclosed amount overall Deputy de Oliveira deputy tavali and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department get an F for likely violating Mr Williams's Fourth Amendment rights maintaining a hostile and antagonistic demeanor throughout the encounter and seemingly attempting to manufacture physical resistance on Mr Williams's part by claiming that he was quote-unquote aggressive when he was simply sitting in his vehicle potentially as a justification for using physical Force to remove him from the vehicle instead of giving Mr Williams time to step out of the vehicle of his own volition once he had started to film the incident on his phone which the officers by the way informed him he could do the officers immediately began to apply force from both sides of him in a seemingly contradictory and confusing manner additionally legal issues arose during this encounter that we did not have time to explore such as the search of Mr Williams's vehicle which potentially violated the Fourth Amendment and the officer's use of handcuffs and leg restraints which along with other factors likely transformed Mr Williams's detention from a Terry stop to a de facto arrest that needed to be supported by probable cause now while it is certainly possible that a court could conclude that at least some of the deputies actions were legal and much more likely that a court would find that they were entitled to qualified immunity given the murky state of case law on these issues and the high legal standard required for citizens to overcome qualified immunity the deputies behaved in an unprofessional and aggressive manner from the beginning of this encounter particularly given the vagueness of the suspect description they believed that Mr Williams was a match to and had they treated Mr Williams with basic human dignity I feel confident they would have received a different response to their attempts to investigate him likewise had they taken the time to observe Mr Williams and his behavior before throwing his car door open they would have realized that he was older than the 20-something suspect that they were looking for and that he was eating lunch in his vehicle which would be highly unusual conduct for someone who had just committed a burglary but instead of making use of the wide array of investigative methods available to them the deputies immediately accelerated their conduct to aggressive detention and intimidation and as a result subjected an innocent man to demeaning and disrespectful Behavior because he happened to have the same skin color as a burglary suspect Mr Williams gets a b-plus because although his interests would have been better served if he had immediately complied with the deputy's orders to exit the vehicle he eventually complied with the command respectfully voiced his disagreement with the deputy's activities and took appropriate action after the encounter by filing both a complaint and a lawsuit this encounter demonstrate how uncertain and unclear the law surrounding police encounters can be and the legality of Mr Williams's conduct in resisting the officer's attempts to remove him from the vehicle revolved around whether or not they had the Reasonable Suspicion necessary to detain him and whether or not their attempts to remove him constituted excessive force because the answer to these questions depends on the information known to the officers at the time and could vary based on the judge or jury that ended up deciding these issues it is typically advisable for citizens to comply with an order to exit the vehicle without resistance regardless of whether or not the order seems reasonable to them that being said I completely understand why Mr Williams felt justified in his refusal to exit the vehicle particularly given the deputy's aggressive demeanor and their potentially excessive use of force and I commend him for his commitment to his constitutional rights and his willingness to pursue legal action following this incident let us know if there is an interaction or legal topic that you would like us to discuss in the comments below thank you for watching and don't forget to check out my second channel for even more police interaction content [Music] foreign [Music]