Court OKs suit against police by 83-year-old

A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit by an 83-year-old woman who was pulled over by Southern California police, who incorrectly thought she was driving a stolen car, then handcuffed, forced to her knees and held on the ground at gunpoint.

Elise Brown was stopped in July 2019 by police officers in Chino (San Bernardino County) who matched her license plate with the plate of a stolen vehicle. In fact, as they later learned, Brown had reported earlier that another of her cars, a different make and model, had been stolen, and police records apparently confused the two license numbers.

The officers, later joined by sheriff’s deputies, ordered her out of the car, determined she was unarmed, then made her walk backward, with her hands raised, before ordering her to the ground and briefly holding her on her knees.

Her lawyers said at least seven local police and sheriff’s officers were present, and three pointed their guns at Brown, who is 5-foot-2, weighed 117 pounds and showed no resistance. They released her after discovering that she had been driving her own car.

Brown was “terrified, humiliated and emotionally traumatized,” the attorneys said in a court filing. Her suit accused the officers of excessive force and unreasonable detention.

U.S. District Judge Matthew Scarsi dismissed the suit in 2021, saying Brown had experienced an “unfortunate encounter” but that the officers had not violated any “clearly established rights.” But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled Monday that she could proceed with damage claims against the officers and the city.

Past rulings have established that even a reasonable suspicion of vehicle theft does not justify use of force by police “when the suspect is outnumbered, unarmed and compliant,” the court said in a 2-1 decision.

In this case, the court majority said, a jury could conclude it was “not reasonable for (the officers) to believe that Brown — an 83-year-old, 5’2,” 117pound, unarmed, completely compliant woman — posed any immediate threat. Therefore, a jury could find that it was not reasonable for (them) to force Brown to her knees and handcuff her.”

The opinion was signed by Judges Marsha Berzon and Bridget Bade, and drew a derisive dissent from Judge Ryan Nelson.

“Handcuffing a well-behaved, unarmed, 83-yearold woman who complied with police direction may violate standards of societal decorum. In hindsight, it seems unnecessary,” Nelson wrote. “And grandmas around the country may rightfully wag an experienced finger chastising the police action here. But that is not the standard for establishing a violation of the Constitution.”

He said there was no evidence that Brown had knee problems or any difficulty kneeling. The officers merely unholstered their guns and pointed them downward without aiming them directly at Brown, Nelson said.

The officers “may not have used perfect judgment,” Nelson wrote, but Supreme Court rulings on police immunity from lawsuits protect “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.”