Breah Bedford v. Brandon Dewitt

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 24-2205
BREAH BEDFORD,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
B
RANDON DEWITT, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:19-cv-00001 — Virginia M. Kendall, Chief Judge.
____________________
ARGUED FEBRUARY 24, 2026 — DECIDED JULY 31, 2026
____________________
Before RIPPLE, KOLAR, and MALDONADO, Circuit Judges.
KOLAR, Circuit Judge. Chicago Police Department officer
Brandon DeWitt shoved Breah Bedford to the ground while
breaking up an altercation with bar owner Joseph Plewa and
his bouncers. Bedford and her acquaintance Simone Jones
sued Officer DeWitt, Plewa, and others for their injuries. A
jury returned a split verdict at trial, awarding Jones damages
against Plewa and his business but rejecting Bedford’s exces-
sive-force claim against Officer DeWitt. Bedford now asks us

2 No. 24-2205
to vacate and remand for a new trial, contending the district
court committed five separate evidentiary errors that under-
mined the jury’s verdict.
In reviewing these issues, we must not second-guess the
district court’s reasonable exercises of its discretion because
we are further removed from the facts and proceedings be-
low. With this principle in mind, we conclude that none of
Bedford’s evidentiary issues, either individually or collec-
tively, constitute reversible error. We affirm.
I. Background
A. Factual Background
Bedford’s appeal “turns on an analysis of the evidentiary
ruling[s] in the context of the entire trial record.” Barber v. City
of Chicago, 725 F.3d 702, 705 (7th Cir. 2013). We thus recount
the underlying facts from the evidence adduced at trial, not-
ing contested details where they arise.
Bedford and her friends were visiting Chicago’s Lakeview
neighborhood on June 24, 2018, the day of the city’s annual
Pride Parade. A little after 9 p.m. that evening, she and Jones
were part of a group gathered on the sidewalk outside
Plewa’s bar Big City Tap on Belmont Avenue. Plewa told
them to move down the sidewalk; they did, but not far
enough for Plewa’s liking. Bedford and Jones (both of whom
are Black), as well as multiple other witnesses, alleged that
Plewa started calling them racial slurs and telling them to “go
back to the South Side” of Chicago. Plewa denied doing so,
but acknowledged that he and multiple security staff told the
group to move away from his property. The situation esca-
lated: Plewa dragged Jones into an outside vestibule and held

No. 24-2205 3
her down, while Bedford started hitting at Plewa and his
bouncers with a bra and plastic necklace, attempting to get
them off Jones.
Then Chicago Police Department (“CPD”) officers arrived
on the scene. Footage from several bystanders’ phones cap-
tures a critical moment: Officer Brandon DeWitt approached
Bedford from behind and shoved her to the ground. Bedford
hit the ground and began spasming violently. The footage
captures angry verbal reactions from bystanders: “Why you
slam her like that?” and “She’s having a seizure!” Officer
DeWitt did not have his body-worn camera activated at the
time.
An ambulance arrived and took Bedford to Illinois Ma-
sonic Medical Center, where she was admitted to the inten-
sive care unit. Bedford stayed at Illinois Masonic for the next
two days, during which she met with a psychiatrist, Dr.
Philippe Tapon. Bedford told Dr. Tapon that she had experi-
enced seizure-like episodes since childhood. Dr. Tapon diag-
nosed her with “psychogenic non-epileptiform seizures”
(“PNES”), a condition that he described to the jury as “where
someone moves as if they’re having a seizure” but is “not
choosing to do so” and not “conscious of it.”
Nurse Kymarie Soest also treated Bedford during her stay
at Illinois Masonic. Nurse Soest testified that Bedford was
combative towards hospital staff and, at one point, swatted at
a technician who was removing leads from her forehead. Bed-
ford tried to discharge herself against medical advice while
agitated, but she fell back into another seizure-like episode as
staff removed the remaining leads. Nurse Soest recalled that
when she was talking to a doctor about potential medical in-
terventions, Bedford became “very angry” and threatened

4 No. 24-2205
her, saying “I’m going to kill that Asian bi**h” (which Bedford
denied saying). Nurse Soest filed a police report based on
Bedford’s alleged threat. She also recalled Bedford making
statements during her hospital stay about wanting to sue CPD
for its officers’ conduct.
B. Procedural History
Bedford and Jones sued Plewa and his business, as well as
Officer DeWitt, other officers, and the City of Chicago. The
district court dismissed some of their claims at summary
judgment but allowed others—including Bedford’s excessive-
force claim against Officer DeWitt and both Plaintiffs’ state
tort claims against Plewa—to proceed to trial. We collectively
refer here to Officer DeWitt, the City, and other named offic-
ers as “the City Defendants,” though only Bedford’s claim
against DeWitt is at issue in this appeal.
1. Motions in Limine
In the lead-up to trial, both sides filed motions in limine
seeking to admit or exclude evidence. Five are relevant to this
appeal.
First, Bedford moved to prevent the City Defendants’ ex-
pert, neurologist Dr. Alan Shepard, from testifying under
Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 403, which respectively ad-
dress expert testimony and unfairly prejudicial evidence. Dr.
Shepard agreed in his report with Dr. Tapon’s initial diagno-
sis that Bedford did not suffer from epilepsy, but he disagreed
that her PNES was involuntary; he described it as “purpose-
ful” and opined that she was “exaggerating” her condition

No. 24-2205 5
due to a “psychiatric problem or secondary gain.”
1
Bedford
argued that Dr. Shepard’s opinions were unnecessary (as she
did not contend she suffered from epilepsy), unreliable, and
improperly usurped the jury’s role of assessing credibility.
The district court granted Bedford’s motion in part during
the final pretrial conference. The district court excluded the
phrase “secondary gain” as “overly prejudicial” under Rule
403. But it held Dr. Shepard could discuss “malingering”—
which, it noted, is a recognized concept in psychiatry.
2

Second, Bedford sought to preclude Nurse Soest from tes-
tifying about (among other things) their interactions at Illinois
Masonic as irrelevant under Rule 401 or, alternatively, unduly
prejudicial under Rule 403, as well as improper “bad acts” ev-
idence under Rule 404(b). The district court denied the motion
in relevant part, holding (subject to revision during trial) that
Nurse Soest could testify as to Bedford’s behavior and her
statements about suing CPD.

1
We read this reference to “secondary gain” to mean the potential
legal and financial benefits of injury. See Stedman’s Medical Dictionary
359000 (updated Nov. 2014) (defining “secondary gain” as “interpersonal
or social advantages ... gained indirectly from organic illness”); Nichols v.
American National Insurance Co., 154 F.3d 875, 882 (8th Cir. 1998) (recount-
ing an expert’s definition of “secondary gain” as “the possibility that
claimed psychological symptoms are motivated by financial gain ... [such
as] in litigation where money is sought”).
2
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (“DSM”)
does not define “malingering” as a medical diagnosis, but rather a condi-
tion that “may be a focus of clinical attention.” See American Psychiatric
Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 834–35
(5th ed. text revision 2022). Its “essential feature” is “the intentional pro-
duction of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symp-
toms, motivated by external incentives.” Id. at 835.

6 No. 24-2205
Third, Bedford moved to exclude evidence related to
CPD’s “use of force” model, which sets out the department’s
guidelines on appropriate responses to situations presenting
different threat levels. The district court denied the motion,
holding that Officer DeWitt could discuss his training on the
model and that the jury would be instructed not to confuse
allowable force under CPD’s model with the ultimate ques-
tion of reasonable force under the Constitution.
Fourth, the City Defendants moved to exclude audio from
any videos of the Big City Tap incident, arguing they con-
tained inadmissible hearsay or improper opinion testimony
from bystanders filming the incident. The district court ulti-
mately granted the motion as to two cell-phone videos that
captured bystanders’ oral reactions to Officer DeWitt’s use of
force on Bedford. Both videos were played silently for the jury
at trial.
Fifth, both sides contested the admissibility of evidence
about Officer DeWitt’s prior uses of force on civilians and
other disciplinary history. Bedford argued this evidence was
admissible under Rule 404(b)(2) to show his improper mo-
tives in shoving Bedford. The City Defendants argued it was
inadmissible because it was irrelevant, confusing, unduly
prejudicial, and inadmissible propensity evidence. The dis-
trict court largely granted the City Defendants’ motion and
denied Bedford’s: It kept out evidence of Officer DeWitt’s
prior uses of force, but allowed evidence about prior disci-
pline he received for turning off his dash-cam.
2. The Trial
The case proceeded to a jury trial. The jury heard testi-
mony from a number of witnesses, including Dr. Shepard and

No. 24-2205 7
Nurse Soest, as well as Dr. Tapon (the psychiatrist who had
evaluated Bedford at Illinois Masonic). When Nurse Soest
took the stand, the district court overruled Bedford’s renewed
objection and allowed her to testify about Bedford’s racial
threats and statements about suing CPD during her time at
Illinois Masonic. But the district court stopped the proceed-
ings when Nurse Soest began testifying about the police re-
port she filed against Bedford and instructed the jury to dis-
regard any testimony to that effect.
On the stand, Dr. Shepard reiterated his report’s conclu-
sions that Bedford did not have epilepsy and that her PNES—
which he referred to as “pseudo-seizures”—could be volun-
tary. The district court allowed him to define the term “ma-
lingering” as “somebody that’s feigning an illness or neuro-
logical deficit,” though it instructed the jury to disregard a
reference Dr. Shepard made to the term “secondary gain.”
Then, over Bedford’s repeated objections, Dr. Shepard pro-
ceeded to give a list of hypothetical examples of malingering
without referring to Bedford by name, including “somebody
that slips on the ice in front of Target ... saying they can’t
move their legs normally, whereas you may examine them
and ... feel that they should be normal,” a “student who
doesn’t want to go to school and will fake an illness,” and an
employee “seeking [worker’s] compensation.” Dr. Shepard
was also allowed to testify that “it [is] possible for a person to
fake a seizure to avoid getting arrested,” again without nam-
ing Bedford specifically.
After deliberating, the jury returned a split verdict. It
found Plewa and his business liable to Jones for negligence
and other state-law violations and awarded her a little over
$120,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. But the jury

8 No. 24-2205
ruled against Bedford on all of her claims against both Officer
DeWitt and Plewa.
Bedford now appeals the district court’s final judgment as
to her excessive-force claim against Officer DeWitt only.
II. Discussion
Bedford challenges five discrete evidentiary rulings made
in connection with the trial. She contends the district court
erred in: (1) allowing Dr. Shepard to testify about hypothet-
ical examples of malingering; (2) allowing Nurse Soest to tes-
tify about her behavior at Illinois Masonic; (3) allowing evi-
dence about CPD’s use-of-force model; (4) excluding the au-
dio from the bystander videos; and (5) excluding evidence of
Officer DeWitt’s prior use-of-force incidents.
In addressing these issues, we review the district court’s
interpretation of the Rules of Evidence de novo and its ultimate
applications of the correct legal standards for abuse of discre-
tion. Carter v. City of Wauwatosa, 114 F.4th 866, 879 (7th Cir.
2024). A district court abuses its discretion in this context only
if its ruling was “manifestly erroneous”—that is, a decision
with which “no reasonable person would agree.” Gopalratnam
v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 877 F.3d 771, 782 (7th Cir. 2017)
(cleaned up). Even if there is error, we will not reverse unless
there is a “significant chance ... that the ruling affected the
outcome of trial.” Nielsen v. Sexton, 168 F.4th 968, 996 (7th Cir.
2026) (citation omitted). Taking each issue in turn, we con-
clude that Bedford has not met these demanding standards
and so affirm.

No. 24-2205 9
A. Dr. Shepard’s Testimony
Bedford’s challenge to Dr. Shepard’s testimony presents
the most difficult issue in this case. Ultimately, though, we do
not find reversible error.
Rule 702 tasks district courts with the “gatekeeping re-
sponsibility” of ensuring that proposed expert testimony will
reliably assist the jury. Kirk v. Clark Equipment Co., 991 F.3d
865, 872 (7th Cir. 2021) ( citing Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharma-
ceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 589 (1993)). To do so, district courts
must evaluate “(1) the proffered expert’s qualifications; (2) the
reliability of the expert’s methodology; and (3) the relevance
of the expert’s testimony.” Id. (citation omitted). And all evi-
dence—including expert testimony—must pass Rule 403’s
general balancing test for unfair prejudice. United States v.
Hall, 93 F.3d 1337, 1344 (7th Cir. 1996).
Bedford does not claim that the district court misinter-
preted Rule 702 or Daubert in evaluating Dr. Shepard’s pro-
posed testimony. Rather, she argues that the district court
abused its discretion under both Rules 702 and 403 by allow-
ing his testimony on “malingering.”
3
His descriptions of

3
Dr. Shepard’s expert report did not mention the concept of “malin-
gering” or directly opine that Bedford herself was “malingering,” as the
City Defendants represented to the district court at the pretrial conference.
We caution litigants against attempting to back-door undisclosed expert
testimony in this way. A party using a retained expert is required to pro-
vide, prior to trial, a report containing “a complete statement of all opin-
ions the witness will express and the basis and reasons for them.” Fed. R.
Civ. P. 26(a)(2)(B)(i). And any information not so disclosed may not be
used at trial. Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(c)(1). But Bedford never objected to the
malingering testimony as undisclosed. Any such objection is therefore
waived or forfeited. See Thomas v. Carmichael, 164 F.4th 1058, 1066 (7th Cir.
2026).

10 No. 24-2205
hypothetical “malingerers,” she contends, made an end-run
around the district court’s pretrial ruling excluding mention
of “secondary gain” by leading the jury to the natural infer-
ence that she was faking her injuries for self-interested rea-
sons. And she argues that his testimony was unhelpful under
Rule 702 because it invaded the quintessential “province of
the trier of fact”—gauging her credibility and motives. Good-
win v. MTD Products, Inc., 232 F.3d 600, 609 (7th Cir. 2000).
As the district court remarked during the pretrial confer-
ence, Bedford did not file a separate Daubert motion seeking
to exclude Dr. Shepard, and only sought to do so as part of
her omnibus motion-in-limine filings on the eve of trial. We do
not suggest Bedford’s late-breaking motion changes the dis-
trict court’s important role as gatekeeper. But we caution that
expert issues are often complex, and it behooves all parties to
allow ample time for district courts to consider and weigh
them.
Still, Bedford raises a valid point that expert testimony on
malingering can pose heightened concerns under both Rules
702 and 403. In Nichols v. American National Insurance Co., for
example, the Eighth Circuit held that expert testimony “im-
pugning [the plaintiff’s] psychiatric credibility and suggest-
ing that ... malingering had influenced her story was not a
proper subject of expert testimony under” Rule 702 and “cre-
ate[d] a serious danger of confusing or misleading the jury”
under Rule 403. 154 F.3d 875, 883 (8th Cir. 1998). The Eighth
Circuit’s conclusion as to 702 rested on both helpfulness and
reliability grounds: “The record does not show that these the-
ories met the Daubert criteria, and in her testimony [the ex-
pert] sought to answer the very question at the heart of the
jury’s task—could [plaintiff] be believed?” Id. And in

No. 24-2205 11
Rodriguez v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the New Jersey Supreme
Court declined to adopt a “bright-line rule categorically ex-
cluding” the term “malingering” under that state’s version of
Rule 403, but noted that the term “raises heightened concerns
since it may implicate credibility” and cautioned trial courts
to “carefully scrutinize[]” its use. 237 N.J. 36, 65–66 (2019).
While neither Nichols nor Rodriguez are binding authority
here, they both highlight potential concerns with expert testi-
mony on malingering. District courts should thus handle such
evidence with great care.
Dr. Shepard’s testimony implicates these concerns, but
our review of the district court’s decision to allow it is limited
and highly deferential. Gopalratnam, 877 F.3d at 782. District
courts have “broad discretion” to gauge expert helpfulness
and reliability under Rule 702, and “are not compelled to ex-
clude all expert testimony merely because it overlaps with
matters within the jury’s experience.” United States v. Curtin,
142 F.4th 503, 509 (7th Cir. 2025) (citation omitted). And our
review under Rule 403 is even more limited: “only in an ex-
treme case are appellate judges competent to second-guess
the judgment of the person on the spot, the trial judge,” in
balancing probative value against unfair prejudice. Agushi v.
Duerr, 196 F.3d 754, 761 (7th Cir. 1999) (cleaned up).
Under these deferential standards, the district court’s de-
cision to allow Dr. Shepard’s brief testimony on malingering
did not cross the line into an abuse of discretion. Bedford has
not meaningfully contested that Dr. Shepard’s training al-
lowed him to testify about the nonphysical nature of PNES
and opine that it could be either conscious or involuntary.
4
It

4
While Bedford’s counsel alluded to an argument during the pretrial
conference that Dr. Shepard was not qualified to discuss psychiatric

12 No. 24-2205
was no abuse of discretion to let him inform the jury about
these general concepts.
Dr. Shepard’s hypothetical examples of malingering could
perhaps come close to the impermissible territory of assessing
Bedford’s credibility and motives—as well as the district
court’s disallowance of testimony on “secondary gain.” The
district court’s initial instinct to exclude this kind of testimony
was understandable, and the later hypotheticals at trial can be
viewed as another way of indirectly illustrating “secondary
gain.” But we cannot say the district court manifestly erred by
momentarily allowing Dr. Shepard to venture outside, but ad-
jacent to, his permissible scope of testimony. Dr. Shepard’s
testimony fell far short of what the Eighth Circuit found to
cross the line in Nichols, where the expert testified that the
plaintiff herself was in fact “affected by secondary gain and
malingering” and directly questioned her credibility. 154 F.3d
at 882. And it was the district court’s prerogative to construe
its own motion-in-limine ruling narrowly during the trial.
Even if we might rule differently in the first instance, we must
give district courts leeway unless “no reasonable person”
would have reached the same conclusion. Gopalratnam, 877
F.3d at 782 (citation omitted). We thus find no abuse of dis-
cretion in allowing Dr. Shepard’s brief testimony on malin-
gering.

conditions because he is a neurologist, Bedford has not clearly articulated
a qualifications (or, for that matter, methodology) challenge under Rule
702 either below or on appeal. She has thus waived or forfeited any objec-
tion to Dr. Shepard’s qualifications or methodology. See Thomas, 164 F.4th
at 1066.

No. 24-2205 13
B. Nurse Soest’s Testimony
Bedford next argues that Nurse Soest’s testimony on her
behavior while admitted at Illinois Masonic Hospital was un-
duly prejudicial under Rule 403 and improper “bad acts” ev-
idence under Rule 404(b). While we agree Nurse Soest’s testi-
mony could have prejudiced Bedford, we do not think any
such prejudice rose to the level of an abuse of discretion.
As an initial matter, we do not see Nurse Soest’s testimony
about Bedford’s behavior as a Rule 404(b) issue. Rule 404(b)
prohibits evidence “of any other crime, wrong, or act” from
being used “to prove a person’s character in order to show
that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with
that character.” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1) (emphasis added). But
Defendants did not invoke Nurse Soest’s testimony to prove
that Bedford acted like she did at Illinois Masonic on any
other occasion. Rather, they argued it was relevant to her
damages (and, in turn, the extent of Officer DeWitt’s use of
force), as well as her credibility. The real question is whether,
despite this potential relevance, Nurse Soest’s testimony
caused the jurors “to decide the case on an improper basis” in
violation of Rule 403 by painting Bedford as a flawed individ-
ual unworthy of recovery. Barber, 725 F.3d at 714, 717 (citation
omitted).
With that framing in mind, we concur with the district
court’s assessment of most of Nurse Soest’s testimony. Evi-
dence that Bedford may have refused to cooperate with treat-
ment spoke to the important issue of her damages, even if it
also cast her in a less-than-flattering light. See Lawson v. Trow-
bridge, 153 F.3d 368, 376–77 (7th Cir. 1998) (Section 1983 plain-
tiffs must mitigate their damages). And evidence of her intent
to sue CPD spoke to her possible motives for remaining at the

14 No. 24-2205
hospital, though the jury need not have drawn this inference
against her. Cf. Mathis v. Phillips Chevrolet, Inc., 269 F.3d 771,
776 (7th Cir. 2001) (district courts are afforded “great defer-
ence” in “balancing ... probative value” against “the danger
of unfair prejudice inherent in a charge of litigiousness”).
The rationale for admitting Nurse Soest’s comments about
Bedford’s alleged racial threat—“I’m going to kill that Asian
bi**h”—is less obvious. Even if this comment too was (mini-
mally) pertinent to Bedford’s cooperation with treatment, as
Defendants argue, its prejudicial effect “needs little explana-
tion.” United States v. Hazelwood, 979 F.3d 398, 412 (6th Cir.
2020). But we will not second-guess the district court’s deci-
sion to allow in this one isolated comment as part of Nurse
Soest’s overall narrative on her interactions with Bedford. Cf.
id. at 412–13 (finding abuse of discretion under Rule 403
where jury heard “absurdly offensive” onslaught of racial and
other obscenities over eight minutes of recordings).
The district court did not let in Nurse Soest’s testimony
wholesale: it disallowed her from offering opinion testimony
about Bedford’s medical conditions, and asked the jury to dis-
regard her comment about the police report she filed against
Bedford. That a different decisionmaker might reasonably
have struck a different balance on which portions of Nurse
Soest’s testimony to admit and which to keep out is not a rea-
son to reverse under Rule 403. Agushi, 196 F.3d at 761. We find
no abuse of discretion in the district court’s evidentiary rul-
ings as to Nurse Soest.
C. CPD’s Use-of-Force Model
Bedford’s third challenge goes to the district court’s deci-
sion to admit evidence of CPD’s use-of-force model: namely,

No. 24-2205 15
testimony from Officer DeWitt about his training in the
model, and a color-coded graphic of the model provided for
the jury as a demonstrative exhibit. CPD’s use-of-force model
taxonomizes acceptable uses of force in response to escalating
threat levels from “cooperative” to “passive resister,” “active
resister,” and finally “assailant” and “assailant deadly force.”
At trial, Officer DeWitt claimed that he “deescalated” against
Bedford by using a level of force appropriate for an “active
resister” even though her actions were consistent with those
of an “assailant.” Bedford now contends that the defense’s use
of the model at trial confused the jury by leading them to as-
sess DeWitt’s actions against CPD’s standards, rather than the
Fourth Amendment’s.
We held in Thompson v. City of Chicago that an internal po-
lice policy like CPD’s use-of-force model was “irrelevant” in
determining “the reasonableness of an officer’s use of force”
under the Constitution. 472 F.3d 444, 455 (7th Cir. 2006) (citing
Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 815 (1996)). But we later
clarified that Thompson did not establish “a rule that evidence
of police policy or procedure will never be relevant to the ob-
jective-reasonableness inquiry.” United States v. Brown, 871
F.3d 532, 537 (7th Cir. 2017). Evidence of an officer’s degree of
compliance with policies on the use of force can, for example,
speak to the officer’s mental state at the time of the challenged
action. Id. at 538.
The district court’s admission of evidence about CPD’s
use-of-force model was a straightforward application of our
holdings in Thompson and Brown. By requesting punitive
damages, Bedford put Officer DeWitt’s mental state squarely
at issue for her excessive-force claim. The jury was entitled to
hear about his training on CPD’s views of acceptable uses of

16 No. 24-2205
force to determine whether he acted with “evil motive” or
“reckless or callous indifference” in using force on Bedford.
Green v. Howser, 942 F.3d 772, 781 (7th Cir. 2019) (citing Smith
v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 56 (1983)). And the district court appro-
priately mitigated any prejudice by instructing the jury under
Thompson that “you’re ... going to be the ones to determine
whether excessive force was used. So [Officer DeWitt] can de-
scribe his actions as they comported with his training ... but
in the end, the ultimate decision is yours.” Because “[w]e as-
sume that jurors follow the instructions they are given,” we
find no error in the district court’s evidentiary rulings on
CPD’s use-of-force model. Manuel v. City of Chicago, 335 F.3d
592, 597 (7th Cir. 2003) (citation omitted).
D. Audio from Videos of Incident
We next consider—and reject—Bedford’s argument that
the district court reversibly erred in excluding the audio from
video footage of the Big City Tap incident.
Bedford devotes much of her effort on appeal to rebutting
the district court’s ruling that the bystander statements in
these videos were inadmissible hearsay. But this is beside the
point. We can accept for the sake of argument that the state-
ments—“Why you slam her like that?” and “She’s having a
seizure”—were admissible either as present-sense impres-
sions under Rule 803(1), or excited utterances under Rule
803(2). Regardless, the exclamations were still subject to Rule
403 balancing. Mister v. Northeast Ill inois Commuter Railroad
Corp., 571 F.3d 696, 699 (7th Cir. 2009).
Perhaps the jurors might have gleaned some probative
value from hearing the bystanders’ contemporaneous evalu-
ations of Officer DeWitt’s use of force. But the district court

No. 24-2205 17
reasonably found this value substantially outweighed by the
prejudicial effect of the shocked and emotional reactions, and
the unverified medical conclusions, of unknown bystanders.
Cf. Abernathy v. Superior Hardwoods, Inc., 704 F.2d 963, 968 (7th
Cir. 1983) (affirming exclusion of video recording’s audio
track under Rule 403). We thus find no abuse of discretion in
the district court’s exclusion of the audio tracks.
E. Evidence of Officer DeWitt’s Prior Uses of Force
Bedford also challenges the district court’s exclusion of ev-
idence about Officer DeWitt’s prior uses of force on civilians.
Again, we find no abuse of discretion.
In her motion in limine, Bedford sought to question Officer
DeWitt on ten prior use-of-force reports that he authored,
most of which involved Black civilians. On appeal, Bedford
reiterates that this evidence should have been admitted under
Rule 404(b)(2)’s allowance of other “bad acts” evidence to
show DeWitt’s “motive,” “intent,” or “absence of mistake” in
using force on her.
We need not address whether this racial-bias theory
passes muster under Rule 404(b); the district court did not err
in excluding the evidence anyway under Rule 403. Manuel,
335 F.3d at 596–97. Evidence of Officer DeWitt’s prior uses of
force could have distracted the jury with “a series of mini-tri-
als” on irrelevant facts, and invited them to improperly pun-
ish DeWitt over conduct for which he was not on trial. Id. As
before, the district court struck a careful balance by admitting
some aspects of Officer DeWitt’s prior disciplinary history
(like a prior incident in which he failed to activate his camera)
while excluding others it found too prejudicial. We find no

18 No. 24-2205
abuse of discretion in the district court’s exclusion of Officer
DeWitt’s prior uses of force.
* * *
Because we find no error in any of the district court’s evi-
dentiary rulings, we also reject Bedford’s argument that the
“cumulative effect” of “several errors” warrants reversal. Bar-
ber, 725 F.3d at 715 (citation omitted).
There is no doubt that some of the evidence presented at
trial cast Bedford in a negative light—just as other evidence
did the same for Officer DeWitt, Plewa, and others involved
in the regrettable incident at the heart of this case. But “most
relevant evidence is, by its very nature, prejudicial.” Lange v.
City of Oconto, 28 F.4th 825, 844 (7th Cir. 2022) (citation omit-
ted). The district court made its best assessment of how to
manage this evidence, allowing the jury to reach its conclu-
sion.
III. Conclusion
For the reasons stated above, we AFFIRM.