Timothy Alan Wilson v. OFFICER ROBERT McKINNEY

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT
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TIMOTHY ALAN WILSON,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
OFFICER ROBERT McKINNEY,
Defendant - Appellee.
No. 21-5080
(D.C. No. 4:20-CV-00184-CVE-JFJ)
(N.D. Okla.)
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ORDER AND JUDGMENT*
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Before BACHARACH, BALDOCK, and EID, Circuit Judges.
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Timothy Alan Wilson appeals pro se from the district court’s judgment in
favor of Robert McKinney on Mr. Wilson’s civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
I. Background
The district court liberally construed Mr. Wilson’s pro se complaint as
asserting three constitutional claims against Officer McKinney arising from
* After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral
estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with
Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
June 16, 2022
Christopher M. Wolpert
Clerk of Court
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Mr. Wilson’s arrest in the early morning hours of April 6, 2020. Mr. Wilson claimed
that Officer McKinney violated his Fourth Amendment rights by arresting him
without probable cause and using excessive force in making the arrest, and also
violated his right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment by acting
vindictively and racially profiling Mr. Wilson when responding to a 911 emergency
call.
A. Mr. Wilson’s Version of the Facts
Mr. Wilson alleged in his complaint that he fled from a disturbance at his
residence and proceeded across the street to ask his neighbors to call the police. He
claimed that when the police arrived, Officer McKinney drew his gun on Mr. Wilson,
ordered him to the ground, and ultimately arrested him because he was “an African
American male in this particular neighborhood” where other police officers live. R.,
Vol. 1 at 20. Mr. Wilson stated his belief that Officer McKinney “felt” that
Mr. Wilson “did not deserve to be” in that neighborhood. Id. He further alleged that
Officer McKinney used excessive force when he “slammed [him] to the ground
twisting [his] arms to the back causing [his] arm to be broken near [his] wrist.” Id.;
see also id. at 17 (alleging that Officer McKinney “deliberately [and] intentionally
broke [his] right wrist”). Officer McKinney also allegedly arrested Mr. Wilson “for a
crime he did not commit,” when he was “innocent” and “the victim.” Id. at 20-21.
According to Mr. Wilson’s complaint, Officer McKinney never asked about the
disturbance at Mr. Wilson’s residence and was deliberately indifferent to his right to
summon the police because Mr. Wilson is black. Mr. Wilson sought compensatory
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damages for his wrist injury and punitive damages “to deter future behavior.” Id. at
18.
B. Officer McKinney’s Version of the Facts
Officer McKinney moved for summary judgment, asserting qualified
immunity. The district court concluded that Officer McKinney’s exhibits, including
body camera video footage from Officer McKinney and Officer Buresh, a second
arresting officer, see id. at 142 n.2, “show[ed] a markedly different version of
events,” id. at 144. According to Officer McKinney’s evidence, the following
occurred beginning at approximately 12:40 a.m. on April 6:
[Officer] McKinney and Officer Corey Buresh, each of whom were driving
separate patrol cars, responded to a 911 call reporting a burglary in process,
specifically, that a male suspect, later identified as [Mr.] Wilson, was
attempting to break into and enter the house at 5514 South Toledo Place, in
Tulsa, Oklahoma. As [Officer] McKinney and [Officer] Buresh drove to
that location, both officers heard updates from the 911 dispatcher advising
the officers that the caller’s “grandpa is trying to keep the door shut; caller
doesn’t know the suspect,” and, finally, “suspect has kicked in the door.”
When [Officer] McKinney and [Officer] Buresh drove up to the house, both
officers saw [Mr.] Wilson inside the house near the front doorway.
Officer Buresh immediately got out of his car with his gun drawn
and ordered [Mr.] Wilson to get on the ground. [Mr.] Wilson complied by
running out of the house, descending the front steps, and laying face-down
on the ground. After [Mr.] Wilson was already on the ground, face-down
with his arms outstretched on either side of his body, Officer McKinney ran
to [Mr.] Wilson’s location, brought [Mr.] Wilson’s arms together behind
[Mr.] Wilson’s back, and placed handcuffs on [Mr.] Wilson’s wrists. When
[Officer] Buresh rolled [Mr.] Wilson over, [Officer] Buresh saw that
[Mr.] Wilson had an injury on his leg and asked him if he had been shot or
stabbed and where he had come from; [Officer] McKinney requested an
ambulance. [Mr.] Wilson appeared confused and some of his replies were
inaudible, but he was able to provide the officers with his name.
[Officer] McKinney later walked to the front door of the house to
speak with the occupants of the house [Mr.] Wilson broke into. As he
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entered the house, [Officer] McKinney saw that the door frame was broken
and saw pieces of the frame lying on the ground. [Officer] McKinney then
spoke with the family who lived there. The homeowner, William Rains,
told [Officer] McKinney that he heard someone knocking on the front door
about 12:30 a.m., that he looked through the peephole and saw a male he
did not recognize, and that he briefly opened the door then immediately
shut it. The male continued banging on the Rains’s door and eventually
“busted through the door,” so [Mr.] Rains began hitting the male with a
baseball bat just as [Officer] McKinney and [Officer] Buresh arrived.
Based on his own observations and the statements he obtained from
the Rains family, [Officer] McKinney arrested [Mr.] Wilson on suspicion
of first-degree burglary. [Officer] McKinney followed the ambulance that
transported [Mr.] Wilson to St. John Medical Center for treatment of the leg
injury and possible injuries from being hit with the baseball bat by
[Mr.] Rains. After [Mr.] Wilson was discharged from the hospital,
[Officer] McKinney transported [Mr.] Wilson to the David L. Moss
Criminal Justice Center.
Id. at 144-46 (citations and footnote omitted).
Mr. Wilson pleaded guilty to one count of breaking and entering without
unlawful intent. He was sentenced to one-year in jail with the last six months
suspended.
C. District Court’s Summary Judgment Analysis
The district court held that Officer McKinney was entitled to qualified
immunity on Mr. Wilson’s claims because Mr. Wilson failed to point to evidence
demonstrating that Officer McKinney had violated his constitutional rights. The
court treated Mr. Wilson’s verified complaint as an affidavit for purposes of its
summary judgment analysis. But it concluded it could accept as true only the
following facts according to Mr. Wilson’s version of the events: that he had recently
moved to a house across the street from the Rainses’ house, and that some
disturbance had occurred at Mr. Wilson’s home, causing him to flee across the street
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to have the neighbors call the police. Aside from these facts, however, the district
court concluded that “nearly every aspect of [Mr.] Wilson’s version of events is
either blatantly contradicted or utterly discredited by other evidence in the record.”
Id. at 149 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The district court first addressed Mr. Wilson’s claim that Officer McKinney
had arrested him without probable cause, noting that standard “‘requires only a
probability or substantial chance of . . . criminal activity, not an actual showing of
such activity.’” Id. at 148 (quoting Dist. of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 586
(2018)). The court held it was undisputed, based upon the arresting officers’
affidavits and the video footage of the incident, that the Rainses had called the police
to report that an unknown man, later identified as Mr. Wilson, was knocking on their
door and had ultimately broken through the door, causing Mr. Rains to defend
himself with a baseball bat. When the officers arrived, they saw Mr. Wilson in the
doorway to the Rainses’ house. Officer McKinney also observed the broken door
frame and interviewed the Rains family about the incident. The district court
concluded that “[a]ny objectively reasonable officer with knowledge of the facts
[Officer] McKinney confronted would have determined that there was more than a
substantial chance of [Mr.] Wilson’s involvement in criminal activity.” Id. at 150
(internal quotation marks omitted). Mr. Wilson therefore failed to demonstrate that
Officer McKinney violated the Fourth Amendment by arresting him without probable
cause.
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Turning to Mr. Wilson’s excessive force claim, the district court noted he was
required to demonstrate that the force used “was ‘objectively unreasonable’ in light
of the severity of the crime at issue, the degree of threat [Mr.] Wilson posed to the
safety of the arresting officers or other[s], and [Mr.] Wilson’s resistance to, or
attempt to evade, arrest.” Id. at 148-49 (quoting Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386,
397 (1989)). The court concluded that the video footage from Officer Buresh’s body
camera showed that Officer Buresh, not Officer McKinney, had approached
Mr. Wilson with his gun drawn and ordered Mr. Wilson to get on the ground. Rather
than showing that Officer McKinney slammed Mr. Wilson to the ground, the footage
from both officers’ body cameras showed that Mr. Wilson complied by laying down
on the ground. And while it was undisputed that Officer McKinney used some
physical force to place handcuffs on Mr. Wilson’s wrists, the footage from both
officers’ body cameras blatantly contradicted Mr. Wilson’s assertions that Officer
McKinney unnecessarily twisted his arms or deliberately broke his wrist. The district
court concluded that, based on the facts sufficiently grounded in the record,
Mr. Wilson failed to establish that Officer McKinney violated the Fourth Amendment
by using excessive force in arresting him.
Finally, the district court held that Mr. Wilson failed to demonstrate a
violation of his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the law, which
required him to show that Officer McKinney treated him differently from similarly
situated individuals and that Officer McKinney was motivated to do so by racial
animus. See Requena v. Roberts, 893 F.3d 1195, 1210 (10th Cir. 2018). Mr. Wilson
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alleged in his complaint that Officer McKinney (1) arrested him or (2) failed to
investigate the disturbance at his residence because Mr. Wilson is African American.
The court concluded that Mr. Wilson’s assertions regarding the purpose behind
Officer McKinney’s action or inaction were blatantly contradicted by the record,
such that no reasonable jury could believe them. As to Mr. Wilson’s arrest, the
district court concluded that “no rational juror could believe [Mr.] Wilson’s assertion
that [Officer] McKinney treated him differently than any other individual seen
breaking into an occupied home by two officers and by four occupants of the home or
that race was a motivating factor in [Officer] McKinney’s decision to arrest
[Mr.] Wilson.” R., Vol. 1 at 152. Moreover, according to the video footage, the
officers repeatedly asked Mr. Wilson about his leg injury, where he had come from,
and whether he had been shot or stabbed, yet Mr. Wilson provided only his name in
response. The court concluded that “[n]o rational juror could believe that
[Mr.] Wilson’s race was a motivating factor in [Officer] McKinney’s alleged decision
not to investigate whether [Mr.] Wilson was the victim of a crime that may have
occurred at his own home before [Mr.] Wilson broke into the Rains’s home.” Id.
Mr. Wilson therefore failed to demonstrate a race-based equal protection violation by
Officer McKinney.
Because Mr. Wilson did not satisfy his burden to demonstrate any
constitutional violation, the district court held that Officer McKinney was entitled to
qualified immunity and entered summary judgment in his favor.
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II. Discussion
We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment based on
qualified immunity. Soza v. Demsich, 13 F.4th 1094, 1099 (10th Cir. 2021). “In
doing so, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party,
Mr. [Wilson].” Id. But “[w]hen opposing parties tell two different stories, one of
which is blatantly contradicted by the record, so that no reasonable jury could believe
it, a court should not adopt that version of the facts for purposes of ruling on a
motion for summary judgment.” Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007) (noting a
“videotape quite clearly contradict[ed] the version of the story told by [the plaintiff],”
id. at 378).
Because Officer McKinney asserted in his summary judgment motion that he
was entitled to qualified immunity, Mr. Wilson bore the “burden to prove (1) the
defendant violated his constitutional rights; and (2) the law was clearly established at
the time of the alleged violation.” Soza, 13 F.4th at 1099. The district court
exercised its discretion to address only the first prong of the qualified immunity
standard, see id., in holding that Mr. Wilson failed to meet his burden to demonstrate
that Officer McKinney violated his constitutional rights. In doing so, the court
concluded that most of Mr. Wilson’s version of the events was blatantly contradicted
by the record, in particular the video recordings from the two officers’ body cameras.
On appeal, Mr. Wilson does not address or show any error in the district court’s
reasoning. He simply reasserts his version of the facts, which the district court held
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was not supported by evidence in the record. 1 We agree with the district court’s
analysis and therefore affirm its grant of summary judgment in favor of Officer
McKinney.
III. Conclusion
The district court’s judgment is affirmed. We grant Mr. Wilson’s motion for
an extension of time to file a reply brief and have considered that brief in our
analysis. 2
Entered for the Court
Per Curiam
1 Mr. Wilson also asserts that, due to his incarceration, he was unable to obtain
medical evidence of his wrist injury or an affidavit from the owner of the house he
had fled from. But as the district court advised, “contrary to [Mr.] Wilson’s apparent
position, it is not the Court’s duty to obtain . . . evidence for him.” R., Vol. 1 at 151
n.12. Moreover, Mr. Wilson fails to explain how this evidence would have precluded
the entry of summary judgment in favor of Officer McKinney.
2 On March 1, 2022, Mr. Wilson submitted a motion seeking an extension of
time to file his opening brief. But he had previously filed his opening brief on
December 10, 2021, after which Officer McKinney filed his appeal brief on
January 11, 2022. We therefore construe Mr. Wilson’s March 1 motion as seeking an
extension of time to file a reply brief.
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