7th Circuit upholds ruling in favor of Evansville officers involved in 2020 shooting

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The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of two Evansville police officers who fatally shot an armed man in 2020, saying the victim’s family failed to highlight any “definite” or “competent” facts to rebut the officers’ narrative.

Federal appellate Judges Joshua Kolar, John Lee and Nancy Maldonado on Friday affirmed summary judgment for Evansville Police Department Officers Cory Offerman and John McQuay, finding that the officers’ belief that Rodriquez Pam was threatening them with a firearm before shooting him was objectively reasonable.

Attorneys for neither party immediately responded to The Lawyer’s request for comment.

According to court documents and video evidence gathered from body camera footage, Heather Geier called 911 in November 2020 to report that a man matching Pam’s description was in her backyard and brandishing a handgun. Geier told the dispatcher that Pam had pointed the gun at both her and her leashed dog.

Offerman was the first officer on the scene, parking his patrol car in a back alley behind Geier’s home. When he got out of the car, he pointed his rifle toward Pam, who was standing on the back porch. Offerman commanded Pam to show his hands several times, but after roughly 15 seconds of no compliance, Offerman approached the home and told Pam to get on the ground, again to no success, court records show.

While Offerman commanded him, Pam had been on the porch trying to work the doorknob to the home. After appearing to give up on the door, Pam walked off the porch and toward the house’s side yard.

Once Offerman reached the yard, still training his rifle on Pam, Pam turned toward him and put his hands in his pockets. Offerman immediately yelled for Pam to remove his hands from his pockets, which Pam did.

At that point, McQuay rushed onto the scene with his gun drawn, shouting at Pam, “I’m going to shoot your ass.”

As McQuay shone his flashlight on Pam, Pam raised his left hand toward the officers and kept his right hand at his side. At this, McQuay fired, and then Offerman followed.

As Pam fell to the ground, a black object rolled away from his body. The officers recognized the object as a handgun.

Pam died at the scene, with a blood alcohol content level of .310, nearly four times the legal amount to drive in Indiana.

According to the Friday opinion, the officers had later stated in interviews with the Evansville Police Department’s internal affairs investigation that they believed Pam held the gun in his right hand, even though the department’s lead investigator into the shooting later testified that he did not see Pam holding a gun in his hand in the body camera footage.

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana found it undisputed that Pam pointed a gun at the officers before they fired. Pam’s estate appealed.

Writing in Friday’s opinion, Judge Kolar said that after extensive review of the videos, including frame-by-frame analysis, the court finds that the videos create a dispute over whether Pam raised a weapon before the officers shot him.

However, in considering all of the evidence, the court did find it undisputed that Pam “behaved in a manner consistent with wielding a firearm.”

According to the court, Pam’s posture and the fact that a firearm was recovered from his body after being shot align with the officers’ depositions that they reasonably believed Pam was wielding a gun.

“Pam’s estate did not point the district court, nor our panel, to anything in the record allowing for a ‘different reasonable interpretation’ of the video,” Kolar wrote in the opinion.

While parts of the video were too fuzzy to confirm the officers’ story, Kolar continued, they were similarly too inconclusive to contradict the story.

“Without the videos, we would have no choice but to accept the officers’ story, which is consistent with the physical evidence,” Kolar stated. “The only question is whether the videos upset that narrative to create a genuine factual dispute. Viewed in Plaintiffs’ favor, the footage still does not support a genuine dispute.”

The main argument examined was under the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits law enforcement from unreasonably using deadly force against an individual.

However, an officer who could have mistakenly, but reasonably, believed certain facts exist to justify a level of force is entitled to “qualified immunity,” the court stated, which protects government officials from lawsuits unless the plaintiff can show that the official had violated their constitutional rights and that the right was clearly established at the time.

In this case, though, the court determined that Pam’s actions gave the officers a reasonable belief that he was wielding a gun and that the officers’ subsequent actions did not violate clearly established law.

“Our decision hinges on the determination that reasonable officers could have concluded that Pam had recently aimed his firearm at a person and an animal, and critically, pulled out a gun in response to police orders in the moments before the officers fired,” Kolar wrote.

The case is Earnise Pam and Sasha Boyd, Co-Special Administrators of the Estate of Rodriquez D’Aundre Pam v. City of Evansville et al, 24-2286.