Mesa claims qualified immunity for deadly police standoff

The family of Shawn Gagne says police negotiators failed to intervene by telling officers to stand down after Gagne dropped his rifle.PHOENIX (CN) — Defending police officers who shot and killed Shawn Gagne inside his apartment in 2023, the city of Mesa says the officers had no way of knowing whether the man was no longer a threat.“This is an egregious case,” city attorney Christina Retts said in a Phoenix courtroom Tuesday. “He repeatedly threatened to kill officers.”After an hourslong standoff, Gagne’s family says in its excessive force and wrongful death lawsuit that Gagne placed his rifle on the kitchen counter and attempted to come outside to surrender while at least eight officers fired multiple volleys of bullets through glass windows and doors, each round being at least 30 seconds apart.In its motion to dismiss, the city says Gagne’s attempted surrender was unclear.“He never said he was surrendering. He never said he was leaving his house,” Retts said. “Saying ‘I’m hit. I’m down’ says nothing about his intent to surrender.”Gagne told police negotiators over the phone that he had multiple weapons and multiple magazines of ammunition and wore body armor. He threatened numerous times to shoot and kill officers.After the first bullet struck Gagne in the face, police negotiators on the phone coaxed him to drop the rifle and come outside, telling him a medical team would be waiting to render aid. Instead, officers fired “en masse,” sending him tumbling down the stairs, and fired off even more shots once he reached the front door.“It’s almost akin to the negotiator walking him into a firing squad,” attorney for the Gagne estate Sean Anthony Woods told U.S. District Judge Sharad H. Desai.Woods said the negotiators had plenty of time to tell fellow officers to stand down, or at least relay their negotiation efforts, before officers continued shooting.“This wasn’t a split-second interaction,” he said.Desai, a Joe Biden appointee, called whether the negotiators had more time “debatable.”Mesa police initially responded to a 911 call from Gagne’s neighbor, who said Gagne drunkenly fired his weapon into the air on his porch after a heated argument. Surveillance footage shows he choked his fiancee and slammed her to the ground.Police surrounded his apartment an hour later. Gagne answered the door with a rifle in his hand, then closed it and began pacing the apartment, occasionally aiming his rifle out the windows at patrol cars.Talking on the phone with negotiators Matthew Adair and C. Orr, he spoke erratically, inviting violence and threatening to kill himself and others.Gagne’s family says Gagne was sobering up and calming down while speaking with negotiators. Woods said Adair and Orr failed to intervene and prevent unnecessary and excessive force by telling other officers what they heard on the phone.“He’s not doing anything to communicate to them what he’s talking to Gagne about,” Woods said of Adair.Because the negotiators stood around the corner with Gagne’s fiancee and did not have a clear line of sight inside the apartment, Retts argued they could not have known whether Gagne was still a threat. And given the verbal threats made against the officers on the scene, they were under no constitutional duty to order those with better vantage points to stand down.Once the first round of bullets hit Gagne on the staircase, Retts argued the officers couldn’t have known whether Gagne was still armed or still a threat, making the final round of shots just as necessary.Neither Adair nor Orr gave a command to the officer who first shot Gagne, striking him in the face. After the shot, and after Gagne put the rifle down, they did not order the first and second rounds of gunfire that ultimately killed him.Gagne’s family also claims a policy, pattern and practice of excessive force. Woods said Mesa police too often resort to the highest level of force available more quickly than necessary. In its response to Mesa’s motion to dismiss, the family lists eight other times Mesa police have shot unarmed people.Retts said the plaintiffs fail to connect those shootings to a specific policy violation or pattern of misbehavior, saying each incident depends on its own specific circumstances to warrant escalation.“Mr. Gagne escalated himself,” she said.Desai didn’t say when he will rule.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads