Strickland v. City of Las Cruces et al

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW MEXICO
JONATHAN STRICKLAND,
Plaintiff,
v. 2:23-cv-00116-KG-KRS
JOSHUA SAVAGE, in his individual
capacity, et al.,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM ORDER AND OPINION
This matter is before the Court on Defendants’ Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law
under Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a), made on the record on February 20, 2026, and in supplemental
briefing, Doc. 323. Defendants Manuel Frias, Nathan Krause, Anthony Lucero, and Joshua
Savage argue that Plaintiff Jonathan Strickland failed to proffer sufficient evidence that each of
them personally participated in the alleged constitutional violation. Doc. 323 at 3. The Court
denies the motion for the reasons below.
I. Findings of Fact
It is undisputed that, on March 11, 2021, each Defendant Officer discharged his firearm
at Mr. Strickland while he sat inside his truck. Def. Exs. A-1–5. The officers’ body-worn
camera footage captures each officer firing his weapon. Id. It is also undisputed that Mr.
Strickland was struck multiple times during the encounter. Def. Exs. A-20–22.
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II. Legal Standards
A. Rule 50
Courts may grant a motion for a judgment as a matter of law where “a reasonable jury
would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the party on that issue.” Fed. R.
Civ. P. 50(a). “Judgment as a matter of law is appropriate only if the evidence points but one
way and is susceptible to no reasonable inferences which may support the nonmoving party's
position.” Elm Ridge Expl. Co., LLC v. Engle, 721 F.3d 1199, 1216 (10th Cir. 2013) (quoting
Escue v. N. Okla. Coll., 450 F.3d 1146, 1156 (10th Cir. 2006)). “A district court's refusal to
grant judgment as a matter of law may be reversed only if the evidence is such that without
weighing the credibility of the witnesses the only reasonable conclusion is in [the moving
party]’s favor.” Elm Ridge, 721 F.3d at 1216 (quoting Keylon v. City of Albuquerque, 535 F.3d
1210, 1214–15 (10th Cir.2008)).
B. Personal Participation and Seizure
Claims of “excessive force” during “an arrest, investigatory stop, or other seizure” of a
citizen “are properly analyzed under the Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness” test.
Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 388 (1989). A seizure occurs when officers, “by physical
force or a show of authority, terminate or restrain [a person’s] freedom of movement through
means intentionally applied.” Brendlin v. California, 551 U.S. 249, 254 (2007). “The
application of physical force to the body of a person with intent to restrain is a seizure even if the
person does not submit and is not subdued.” Torres v. Madrid, 141 S. Ct. 989, 1003 (2021).
To establish § 1983 liability in an individual capacity, “the plaintiff must establish a
deliberate, intentional act” on the part of the defendant “to violate [the plaintiff's legal] rights.”
Parro v. Barnes, 624 F.3d 1322, 1327–28 (10th Cir. 2010). Although § 1983 liability must
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ordinarily be “traceable to a defendant-official’s own individual actions,” Pahls v. Thomas, 718
F.3d 1210, 1225 (10th Cir. 2013), an “individualized analysis” is not required in an excessive-
force case where, like here, “all Defendants actively participated in a coordinated use of force,”
and they were “engaged in a group effort.” Edwards v. City of Muskogee, Oklahoma, 841 F.
App’x 79, 83 (10th Cir. 2021) (quoting Est. of Booker v. Gomez, 745 F.3d 405, 422 (10th Cir.
2014)). “[A] police officer may be responsible for another officer’s use of excessive force if the
officer...actively participated in the use of excessive force.” Booker, 745 F.3d at 422 (quoting
Bletz v. Gribble, 641 F.3d 743, 754 (6th Cir. 2011).
III. Analysis
A. A reasonable jury could find that a seizure occurred.
As a threshold matter, a reasonable jury could find that officers seized Mr. Strickland. A
seizure occurs when officers, “by physical force or a show of authority, terminate or restrain [a
person’s] freedom of movement through means intentionally applied.” Brendlin, 551 U.S. at
254. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Mr. Strickland, a reasonable jury could
find that officers terminated his freedom of movement before the shooting began. The officers
executed a PIT maneuver that disabled Mr. Strickland’s vehicle and blocked his path. Lieutenant
Savage positioned his vehicle nose-to-nose with Mr. Strickland’s truck, preventing forward
movement, while multiple police units surrounded the truck. By firing rounds and striking Mr.
Strickland, Defendant Officers continued the seizure. See Torres, 141 S. Ct. at 1003.
Accordingly, a jury could find that the seizure occurred before the gunfire and continued during
the use of force.
Defendants argue that no Fourth Amendment seizure occurred because not every
officer’s bullet struck Mr. Strickland. Defendants are correct that the Fourth Amendment is not
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implicated when an officer discharges a firearm but fails to apply physical force or otherwise
terminate a person’s freedom of movement. See Bella v. Chamberlain, 24 F.3d 1251, 1256 (10th
Cir. 1994) (finding no seizure where shots fired at a fleeing helicopter “did not cause [the
plaintiff] to submit nor did they otherwise succeed in stopping him”). That is not the case here.
Unlike in Bella, where the plaintiff continued to flee after the shots were fired, a reasonable jury
could find that Mr. Strickland had already been seized before the gunfire began. The evidence,
viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, supports a finding that officers had disabled his
vehicle, blocked his path, and surrounded him, thereby terminating his freedom of movement. In
Graham, the Court made clear that the Fourth Amendment governs claims that officers used
excessive force “in the course of an arrest, investigatory stop, or other ‘seizure,’” and it evaluated
whether the force used during that stop was objectively reasonable—even though the stop itself
was not the focus of the constitutional violation. The reasonableness of the force is analytically
distinct from the validity of the initial seizure.
B. A reasonable jury could find that each Defendant Officer personally
participated in the alleged constitutional violation.
Next, a reasonable jury could find that each Defendant Officer personally participated in
the alleged constitutional violation during the execution of the seizure. To establish individual
liability under § 1983, a plaintiff must show “a deliberate, intentional act” by the defendant “to
violate [the plaintiff’s legal] rights.” Parro v. Barnes, 624 F.3d 1322, 1327–28 (10th Cir. 2010).
The violation at issue here is the alleged use of objectively unreasonable deadly force during a
seizure. The undisputed evidence shows that all four officers fired their weapons during the
same encounter, and a jury could reasonably conclude that they acted as part of a single,
coordinated effort to apply objectively unreasonable deadly force. Mr. Strickland was struck
multiple times during a continuous volley of gunfire, producing a single, indivisible injury.
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Where multiple officers concurrently produce such an injury through their intentional use of
force, each officer who actively participated may be held responsible for the resulting harm.
Booker, 745 F.3d at 422. Here, a reasonable jury could find that each Defendant’s deliberate
discharge of his firearm contributed to the same indivisible injury and thus constituted personal
participation in the alleged constitutional violation.
This case is analogous to Booker, 745 F.3d at 416. There, the Tenth Circuit held that an
individualized parsing of force was unnecessary where “all Defendants actively and jointly
participated in the use of force” and were “engaged in a group effort.” Id. at 422. The officers
applied different forms of force—one used a carotid hold, others restrained and handcuffed the
plaintiff, and another deployed a taser—but the court concluded that “[i]f excessive force
occurred, all deputies contributed to it.” Id. Because the deputies’ combined actions produced
an indivisible injury, each could be held responsible. Id. (quoting the principle that where
“several independent actors concurrently or consecutively produce a single, indivisible injury,
each actor will be held jointly and severally liable for the entire injury”). The same reasoning
governs here. It is undisputed that each Defendant intentionally discharged his firearm at Mr.
Strickland while he sat inside his truck. The coordinated gunfire struck him more than ten times.
As in Booker, the Defendant Officers’ actions were not isolated uses of force; they were part of a
single, coordinated use of force that produced indivisible injury.
Although Booker analyzed excessive force under the Fourteenth Amendment because the
plaintiff was a pretrial detainee, its discussion of joint participation and personal liability under §
1983 applies with equal force here, where the alleged use of force occurred during a Fourth
Amendment seizure. Indeed, Bletz¸which the Court cites for the proposition that ““[A] police
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officer may be responsible for another officer’s use of excessive force if the officer...actively
participated in the use of excessive force,” arose in a Fourth Amendment context.
Defendants argue that Mr. Strickland cannot establish that each officer personally
participated in the use of force because he cannot prove that each officer’s bullet actually struck
him. Defendants correctly cite Pahls v. Thomas, 718 F.3d 1210, 1225 (10th Cir. 2013) for the
proposition that § 1983 liability must be “traceable to a defendant-official’s own individual
actions” and that personal participation is analyzed at the first step of the qualified-immunity
inquiry. Id. at 1227–28. Their reliance on Pahls, however, is misplaced. The Tenth Circuit’s
concern in that case was that the plaintiff relied on undifferentiated allegations that “defendants”
collectively violated his rights without more specificity. Id. at 1225–26. The court emphasized
that a plaintiff must “identify specific actions taken by particular defendants,” and that liability
must rest on conduct “traceable to a defendant-official’s own individual actions.” Id. That
concern is not present here. Mr. Strickland does not rely on collective allegations. Rather, he
relies on Defendant Officers’ own body-worn camera footage showing that each Defendant
Officer personally discharged his firearm during the encounter. Therefore, a reasonable jury
could find that Defendant Officers personally participated in the use of force.
Finally, Defendants’ qualified immunity argument is premature at this stage because the
first prong—whether the evidence establishes a constitutional violation—turns on disputed issues
of historical fact that are properly resolved by the jury. “If there is a factual dispute involving an
issue on which qualified immunity turns, summary judgment based on a qualified immunity
defense in a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action is inappropriate.” Gonzales v. Albuquerque Pub. Schs.,
2012 WL 13080124, at *4 (D.N.M.) (citing Archer v. Sanchez, 933 F.2d 1526, 1533 n.1 (10th
Cir. 1991). The reasonableness of the officers’ use of deadly force here depends on findings of
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fact, including whether Mr. Strickland posed an immediate threat at the moment force was used,
whether officers reasonably believed he had a gun, and whether the officers feared for their
safety for the duration of the incident. These are classic jury questions. The Court has already
determined that special interrogatories will be submitted to the jury to resolve the specific factual
predicates underlying the qualified immunity analysis. Those findings will permit the Court, if
necessary, to eventually address the legal question of qualified immunity. Because a reasonable
jury could find facts establishing a Fourth Amendment violation, judgment as a matter of law on
qualified immunity is not appropriate at this time. Defendants’ Motion for Judgment as a Matter
of Law is denied.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
/s/Kenneth J. Gonzales___________________
CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
• Please note that this document has been
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authenticity, please refer to the Digital File
Stamp on the NEF (Notice of Electronic
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