Hempel v. City of Grass Valley

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PHILIP ANDREW HEMPEL, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF GRASS VALLEY, as operator of the Grass Valley Police Department, and OFFICER COLTON DUNCAN, Defendants.

No. 2:21-cv-01827-MCE-JDP

United States District Court, E.D. California

November 4, 2022

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

MORRISON C. ENGLAND JR., SENIOR UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Through the present action, Plaintiff Philip Andrew Hempel (“Plaintiff”) asserts the following claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against two Defendants: (1) unreasonable and excessive force causing physical injury against Defendant Colton Duncan (“Officer Duncan”); and (2) municipal liability for policy custom, or practice causing unreasonable and excessive force against Defendant City of Grass Valley (the “City”). See First Am. Compl., ECF No 14 (“FAC”). Presently before the Court is the City's Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's Second Claim for municipal liability, which has been fully briefed.^[1] ECF Nos. 17-1 (“City's Mot.”), 21 (“Pl.'s Opp'n”), 24 (“City's Reply”). For the reasons set forth below, the City's Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.^[2]

BACKGROUND^[3]

A. Factual Background

Plaintiff is a longtime resident of Grass Valley, California, and is familiar to the Grass Valley Police Department (“GVPD”). He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and associated psychological conditions and had been under a doctor's care leading up to the alleged events in question. Plaintiff's medical care has included prescription medication. Although not homeless at the time of the incident or since then, Plaintiff had previously experienced some periods of homelessness and on several occasions was arrested for minor offenses by GVPD. As a result, Plaintiff was generally known by GVPD and, upon Plaintiff's information and belief, Officer Duncan.

On October 4, 2019, at approximately 11:45 p.m., Plaintiff was standing near the entrance to a Safeway store located at 867 Sutton Way, Grass Valley, California. Plaintiff alleges he was not engaged in, or about to commit, any crime but instead was standing and walking on the sidewalk outside the store. There had been no complaint from the Safeway store management about Plaintiff. At the same time, Officer Duncan was on patrol in the vicinity of the Safeway store when he was allegedly informed by a local citizen that a man was outside the store, was talking out loud to himself, and appeared to have a mental health issue and/or be substance impaired. Officer Duncan then drove his patrol vehicle to the Safeway parking lot where he observed Plaintiff /// yelling out loud and otherwise acting in the manner of a person with a mental health issue and/or substance impairment.

As Plaintiff moved towards the entrance of the Safeway store, Officer Duncan allegedly rolled down the window of his patrol vehicle and said, “What's up man? Go ahead and stop.” According to Plaintiff, he was not doing anything wrong and did not understand that Officer Duncan wanted him to stop. Plaintiff then proceeded to walk into the Safeway store which had two sets of double-electric-doors, one for entering the store and the other for exiting. There was a metal rail divider between the entrance and exit doors both inside and outside the store. Officer Duncan exited his patrol vehicle, ran to the entrance of the Safeway store, and followed Plaintiff inside. As Officer Duncan entered the store, Plaintiff was exiting on the other side of the divider. Officer Duncan allegedly did not ask Plaintiff to stop or speak to him at all. Instead, as he came around the inside divider and began to follow Plaintiff out of the store, Officer Duncan allegedly yelled, “Get on the ground.” At the same time, Plaintiff alleges that Officer Duncan grabbed him from behind and forced Plaintiff down onto the sidewalk just outside of the door. Plaintiff states that he was thrown to the ground with such speed and force that he was not able to stop his head from hitting the concrete sidewalk, which resulted in Plaintiff's head being cut open and bleeding profusely.

Immediately after throwing Plaintiff to the ground, Officer Duncan allegedly pinned Plaintiff's left wrist and hand against the sidewalk and also placed his right hand against the back of Plaintiff's head, pushing Plaintiff's face into the pool of blood. Officer Duncan repeatedly yelled, “Get your hands behind your back,” even though Plaintiff could not comply because Officer Duncan was on top of his back and actively holding Plaintiff's left hand and head against the concrete sidewalk. After some seconds, Officer Duncan released Plaintiff's left hand and head but when Plaintiff tried to pull his head and arms off the concrete, Officer Duncan allegedly forced him onto the concrete again and into the pooling blood. Following several more seconds, other GVPD officers arrived on the scene and placed Plaintiff in handcuffs. The officers questioned Plaintiff about his head injury and summoned emergency medical assistance. Plaintiff was transported to the local emergency room where he received treatment for his wound and bruises.

While still at the incident scene, a GVPD sergeant asked Officer Duncan (referring to Plaintiff's bloody head wound), “How did he get that?” Officer Duncan allegedly responded, “I dumped him.” At this point, Officer Duncan switched off the audio on his body camera.

B. The City's Policies, Practices, or Procedures

According to Plaintiff, the City is obligated to have policies, practices, and procedures (“PPPs”) regarding Crisis Intervention Incidents^[4] between their officers and persons having mental and/or physical health disabilities and/or substance abuse problems so that these incidents can be addressed with no force or the least amount of force possible. Plaintiff relies on multiple GVPD policies, including two use of force PPPs (“UOF PPP”): (1) “Factors Used to Determine the Reasonableness of Force,” § 300.3.2, and (2) “Alternative Tactics - De-Escalation,” § 300.3.6. See Ex. 1, FAC, at 24-26. In addition, Plaintiff cites five Mental Health PPPs, which are as follows: (1) Purpose, Scope, and Definitions of policy relating to “Crisis Intervention Incidents,” § 464.1; (2) “First Responders,” § 464.5; (3) “De-Escalation,” § 464.6; (4) “Incident Orientation,” § 464.7; and (5) “Supervisor Responsibilities,” § 464.8. See Ex. 2, FAC, at 32, 33-35. The UOF and Mental Health PPPs required that GVPD employees be trained in these policies. See UOF PPP § 300.8, Ex. 1, FAC, at 30 (“Officers, investigators, and supervisors will receive periodic training on this policy and demonstrate their knowledge and understanding . . .”); Mental Health PPP § 464.12, Ex. 2, FAC, at 36 (“In coordination with the mental health community and appropriate stakeholders, the Department will develop and provide comprehensive education and training to all department members to enable them to effectively interact with persons in crisis. This department will endeavor to provide Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST)-approved advanced officer training on interaction with persons with mental disabilities, welfare checks and crisis intervention . . .”).

Plaintiff performed an analysis of the publicly available POST training records of GVPD officers, which identifies the following training topics deemed relevant by Plaintiff: (1) “UOF/De-Escalation,” (2) “De-Esc[alation] & Tactical Comm.,” (3) “Crisis Intervention] Behavioral [H]ealth,” (4) “Crisis Intervention] & De-Esc[alation],” (5) “Hostage Negotiation],” (6) “Officer Involved Shootings,” and (7) “Crisis Negotiation.” See Ex. 4, FAC, at 42. This analysis shows that, in the ten years prior to the alleged use of excessive force on Plaintiff, only 16 classes on relevant topics had been taken by GVPD officers. See id. However, after the events in question and before the present lawsuit was filed, almost all GVPD officers, including Officer Duncan, took the “UOF/De-Escalation” class. Id. The analysis also shows that Officer Duncan did not have any POST-approved training in any of the other aforementioned topics prior to his encounter with Plaintiff. Id. Plaintiff further alleges that prior to January 1,2020, GVPD did not have a “Training Manager” and did not assign any personnel to the “Training Committee” in violation of its policy. See Ex. 3, FAC, at 38-40 (Policy 208).

Based on the above, Plaintiff alleges that the City failed to adequately train its officers in these PPPs to prevent the use of unnecessary and excessive force used against persons with mental disabilities and/or substance impairments. Plaintiff further alleges that the City did not have adequate supervision of its GVPD field officers to monitor and enforce such policies. According to Plaintiff, the alleged failure of the GVPD to have a Training Manager or Training Committee shows an inadequate chain of command which made it impossible to monitor, supervise, or enforce the PPPs, or to adjust the actions of GVPD field officers to ensure compliance with those PPPs. These foregoing failures, Plaintiff claims, allowed the unreasonable and unnecessary use of force against Plaintiff.

STANDARD

On a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), all allegations of material fact must be accepted as true and construed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Cahill v. Liberty Mut Ins. Co., 80 F.3d 336, 337-38 (9th Cir. 1996). Rule 8(a)(2) “requires only ‘a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief' in order to ‘give the defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.'” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 47 (1957)). A complaint attacked by a Rule...