Noting that a San Diego police officer and a Homeland Security agent were off-duty when they got into a physical altercation at a Costco parking lot, a judge said the police officer wasn’t performing any government work at the time that entitled him to immunity under his badge.
SAN DIEGO (CN) — An off-duty Department of Homeland Security agent who was knocked unconscious by an off-duty San Diego police officer after an argument in a Costco parking lot will be allowed to proceed with an excessive force lawsuit after a federal judge ruled in his favor.
U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia denied qualified immunity to the individual defendants and rejected their bid to dismiss the case. Battaglia, a Barack Obama appointee, found that the plaintiff, Chu Ding, who is an agent with the Department of Homeland Security, plausibly claimed excessive, wrongful detention and false arrest.
Ding filed the lawsuit lawsuit last year against the city’s police officers after an altercation with San Diego Police Department Officer Jonathan Ferraro.
Ding, a man in his 50s, says that he tapped on the hood of Ferraro’s truck, which was blocking him from leaving the parking lot. Ferraro jumped out of the truck, hurled racial epithets and then shoved Ding, he says. When Ding refused to back down, Ferraro body slammed him to the ground, causing him to lose consciousness and suffer a dislocated shoulder.
Additional police officers arrived on the scene and detained Ding for several hours, he says. Ding says the police officers denied him food, water and medical care and pressured him into writing an apology letter to Ferraro at a police station.
Ding says he was eventually charged with felony obstructing or resisting an officer. However, that charge was later dropped by the San Diego District Attorney. Ding says that he was also cleared of any wrongdoing by the Department of Homeland Security.
Ding claims that Ferraro used excessive force and unlawfully arrested him when he had not committed a crime.
“The information before the court indicates that Ferraro is not entitled to invoke the shield of qualified immunity,” Battaglia wrote in his Monday ruling. “Ferraro was not performing any ‘public duties’ or ‘carrying out the work of government.’ Providing immunity, in turn, would not ‘protect government’s ability to perform its traditional functions.’”
When responding officers Patrick Richards and Emilee Emamjomeh arrived, they tightly handcuffed Ding, causing injury, and arrested him without probable cause, he says in his complaint.
Battaglia also denied Richards and Emamjomeh coverage under qualified immunity.
“Under these circumstances, there was no reasonable suspicion or probable cause for Richards and Emamjomeh to detain or arrest Ding,” the judge wrote. “Nor was there any basis on which Richards or Emamjomeh could reasonably believe that reasonable suspicion or probable cause existed for the detention or arrest.”
A key element of the case is the security footage of the parking lot altercation that was captured by Costco. The footage, Ding argues, clearly shows Ferraro as the aggressor.
But police portray a much different version of the story in their motion to dismiss the case.
According to police, Ding, who they describe as a deportation officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, charged Ferraro. They argue that this is represented in the video footage and that Ferraro only used force to defend himself from Ding.
The police also say that the video contradicts Ding’s claims. They asked the court to consider the video to dismiss many of the claims against them.
But Battaglia declined to interpret the video footage at this stage of the case. Additionally, police defendants did not introduce the evidence in a way that allowed fact-finding for both parties, he wrote.
“Defendants do not get to complain of the consequences of their own conduct and deprive Ding of an ‘opportunity to respond to the [defendants’] new version of the facts,’” he wrote. “The court will not endorse such gamesmanship.”
But Battaglia granted the city’s motion to dismiss claims against its supervising officers for failing to supervise and discipline its officers, finding that they were not personally involved in the purported misconduct. Battaglia also threw out Ding’s Monell claim against the city — a type of claim that holds government entities liable for civil rights violations when an unconstitutional act was part of a policy or practice.
However, Battaglia granted Ding leave to amend his complaint so that those claims could be refiled in the future.
Neither party immediately responded to requests for comment.
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