Facts
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On June 9, 2023, Edgar Mosti attended a Duran Duran concert at the Cynthia Woods Pavilion. Mosti and two female companions had too much to drink and began walking toward an exit. The trio encountered Officer Raymond Adams and Detectives Caitlan Adams and Gregory Tullis. When Detective Tullis questioned Mosti about his inebriation, Mosti responded with a tirade of expletives and racial slurs. Mosti was arrested for public intoxication. In an ensuing struggle with the two detectives, Mosti and Detective Gregory Tullis fell to the ground. The officers’ interactions with Mosti were captured on video by the body cameras worn by the officers.
Mosti sued all three officers for excessive force, malicious arrest, and First Amendment retaliation. Mosti subsequently dismissed Officer Adams and Detective Adams from the suit, as well as his First Amendment and malicious arrest claims against Detective Tullis. That left just the excessive force claim against Detective Tullis. As to that claim, Mosti alleged that Tullis intentionally swept his legs out from under him while Mosti was handcuffed and being led away. In response, Tullis claimed that he unintentionally fell alongside Mosti after Mosti attempted to knock Detective Adams over by shoving her with his shoulder. Tullis also argued that any use of force, intentional or otherwise, was reasonable under the circumstances.
After reviewing video of the incident, the district court granted summary judgment to Tullis. The order expressly incorporated the court’s reasoning from an earlier hearing. At that hearing, the court noted “some doubt on the video as to how the two people fell,” but maintained that “the police were well within their qualified immunity.” Mosti timely appealed. The 5th affirmed.
Analysis
To make out an excessive force claim, a plaintiff must show (1) injury, (2) which resulted directly and only from a use of force that was clearly excessive, and (3) the excessiveness of which was clearly unreasonable. The parties do not dispute that Mosti was injured, satisfying the first prong. The question on appeal is therefore whether Detective Tullis used “clearly excessive” force that was “clearly unreasonable” when he and Mosti fell to the ground.
Mosti briefs this appeal as though it turns on a single issue: whether Detective Tullis intentionally “swept Mosti’s legs from under him. On Mosti’s telling, the body camera footage shows Detective Tullis deliberately bringing him to the ground with a sweep of his legs, and such an act qualifies as per se unreasonable force, defeating Tullis’s qualified immunity defense. We disagree. In a confused scene, the video evidence shows Mosti resisting being handcuffed before Detectives Adams and Tullis finally restrain him and begin leading him away. Officer Adams then stops to retrieve Mosti’s dropped sunglasses and drink, before turning to follow.
While Officer Adams is facing downward, Detective Adams’s body camera records Mosti pulling away from Detective Tullis. Detective Adams submitted a declaration that at this point, Mosti “came very close to making contact with [her].” When Officer Adams looks back up, his camera captures Mosti stumbling away from Detective Adams and back towards Detective Tullis. It is in response to Mosti’s resisting arrest that Detective Tullis sticks out his leg, whether purposefully or inadvertently, bringing Mosti to the ground.
Even assuming Mosti is correct that Detective Tullis purposefully tripped him, that would not defeat qualified immunity. Either way, Tullis acted reasonably. Again, consider what the video shows. An extremely intoxicated Mosti yelled obscenities and racial slurs at officers at the slightest provocation. Mosti then resisted efforts to handcuff him, continuing his drunken misconduct throughout. Finally, even when handcuffed, Mosti used his considerable bulk to lunge towards Detective Adams and send Detective Tullis reeling on the backswing. It does not matter what Tullis subjectively thought or intended. What matters is that a reasonable officer confronted with a noncompliant suspect like Mosti, willing and able to resist officers even when handcuffed, could conclude that bringing Mosti to a prone position was necessary to effectuate his arrest. That is precisely the sort of “measured and ascending” use of force that officers may reasonably take in response to noncompliance. That is particularly so where, as here, video evidence does not show the officers acting with any animus towards Mosti, and instead shows that Mosti’s resistance created a situation where reasonable force was necessary.
As the plaintiff, Mosti was required to show that Tullis used clearly excessive force that was clearly unreasonable. The video does not show this to be the case. Tullis is therefore entitled to qualified immunity.
Mosti’s counterarguments are unconvincing. First, Mosti compares himself to fully compliant suspects who were nevertheless harmed by police. But none of these authorities are on point. None of these cases establishes that it was objectively unreasonable for Tullis to take Mosti to the ground as he did. Mosti was not passive or helpless, but actively resisting Detectives Adams and Tullis. Nor was the use of force grossly disproportionate to the offense. By contrast, Mosti wrestled with officers throughout his arrest and pulled away from Detective Tullis, and in return was taken to the ground to await backup. None of Mosti’s cited authorities come close to meeting his burden of showing that Tullis’s force was “clearly excessive” and “clearly unreasonable.”
AFFIRMED.
https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/unpub/25/25-20084.0.pdf