Background
On October 6, 2022, Gulfport Police received a 911 call reporting a silver Kia Soul with multiple occupants brandishing firearms and following the caller’s vehicle through red lights. Officers Kenneth Nassar and Benjamin Ford located a matching vehicle in a Family Dollar parking lot. When officers activated their lights, two males exited and ran along the storefront. One was Jaheim McMillan, 15 years old.
Officer Nassar announced “Gulfport Police” and ordered McMillan to stop. McMillan continued running. Nassar identified a black handgun in McMillan’s right hand and ordered him to drop it. McMillan ran toward the store entrance, turned to face Officer Nassar, and Nassar fired. McMillan died. The recovered weapon was a stolen Taurus 9mm handgun loaded with eight rounds.
Mateen, McMillan’s mother, sued the City and Officer Nassar under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for Fourth Amendment violations. The district court granted Officer Nassar summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds. Mateen, proceeding pro se, appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that Officer Nassar is entitled to qualified immunity. The court assumed arguendo that McMillan was attempting to evade arrest rather than attack officers and that he never actually aimed the gun at Nassar. Despite these assumptions favorable to Mateen, the court found she failed to show that Nassar violated clearly established law.
The court explained that under qualified immunity doctrine, clearly established law must not be defined at too high a level of generality and must place the constitutional question “beyond debate.” While the Supreme Court’s decisions in Graham v. Connor and Tennessee v. Garner establish principles governing deadly force, they do not create clearly established law outside “obvious cases.” The court distinguished Cole v. Carson (involving officers shooting a suicidal teenager who had not threatened others and was not fleeing with a gun) as inapplicable to the facts here.
The circumstances—police responding to a report of armed occupants, a fleeing suspect carrying a loaded firearm, continuing to run after commands to stop, and turning to face the officer during a rapidly unfolding encounter outside an occupied store—did not constitute an obvious violation of clearly established law. The court noted that Fifth Circuit precedent runs contrary to Mateen’s position, holding there is “no basis” for the proposition that a suspect poses no threat merely because he never actually aimed his gun at an officer.
Key Takeaways
- Qualified immunity shields officers from liability unless they violated a clearly established constitutional right, even assuming the underlying use of force was unconstitutional.
- The Fifth Circuit will not find deadly force clearly unconstitutional absent an “obvious case,” and general principles from Garner and Graham do not establish the right at the requisite specificity.
- An armed suspect’s failure to actually aim a firearm does not per se establish that the suspect posed no threat justifying deadly force.
- Rapid, chaotic encounters involving armed suspects fleeing in public areas do not trigger clearly established law protecting suspects from lethal force when they ignore commands.
Why It Matters
This decision reflects the Fifth Circuit’s strict application of the “clearly established law” prong of qualified immunity doctrine in deadly force cases. Although the court assumed the officer might have violated the Fourth Amendment on the merits, it immunized the officer because no prior appellate decision had made it “beyond debate” that shooting an armed fleeing suspect in these circumstances was unconstitutional. This significantly limits plaintiff remedies in officer-involved shooting cases within the circuit.
The decision illustrates the tension between police accountability and qualified immunity protection. A plaintiff must not only argue the force was excessive but identify pre-existing case law that placed the officer on notice that his specific conduct violated the Constitution. For armed-suspect scenarios involving noncompliance and public settings, the Fifth Circuit has found such notice lacking, making qualified immunity a near-absolute bar to § 1983 claims even when factual disputes exist about the encounter’s circumstances.