Shooting a Fleeing Suspect as a Fourth Amendment Seizure

• State Officers’ Civil Liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
• An Arrest as a Fourth Amendment Seizure of the Person
• Seizure of a Person Through the Use of Force
• Physical Force Used Against an Escapee with the Intent to Restrain

The application of physical force by a police officer to the body of a person with the intent to restrain her constitutes a Fourth Amendment seizure, even if the person does not submit and is not subdued.  This includes the situation where, despite a police officer’s use of force by shooting and wounding the person, she escapes.

On July 15, 2014, four New Mexico State Police Officers, including Officers Janice Madrid and Richard Williamson, went to an apartment complex in Albuquerque to execute an arrest warrant for a specific woman.  Instead, they came across two other people standing near a car in the parking lot.  As the officers approached them, one of them walked away while the other—plaintiff Roxanne Torres in this lawsuit—got into a car and prepared to drive away.  According to plaintiff’s version of the facts, she didn’t notice the officers until one of them tried to open the door to her car.  Despite the officers wearing tactical vests identifying themselves as police officers, plaintiff claimed that she only saw their guns.  The fact that—as she later admitted—she was “tripping out bad” on methamphetamine, might have had something to do with her alleged confusion.  Thinking they were carjackers trying to steal her car, and later claiming that none of the apparent “car jackers” were in her way, she “hit the gas” in an attempt to escape.  After unsuccessfully ordering her to stop, Officers Madrid and Williamson (who later testified that they feared they were about to be struck by plaintiff’s car) opened fire on her ....