Police Response to Threat by Person with Mental Illness

Facts of the Case

Bradley King, a 29-year-old man with schizophrenia, was killed at his home in Hendricks, Indiana, by police performing a welfare check after he called 911 requesting help. No other eyewitnesses were available; the only testimony was from the deputies involved.

Deputies Jason Hays and Jeremy Thomas testified that, upon their arrival to the house, Mr. King came out and walked toward them, pulling a 10-inch knife out of his shorts pocket. Despite drawing their firearms and yelling at Mr. King to stop and drop his knife, Mr. King kept moving forward and started to run at Deputy Hays. When Mr. King was approximately eight feet away, Deputy Hays fired one shot at Mr. King, killing him.

Bradley King's father (petitioner) brought the three federal civil rights claims described above against Deputy Hays, the Hendricks County Commissioners, the Sheriff's Department, and the Sheriff. The lower court granted summary judgment for the defense on all three claims.

Ruling and Reasoning

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court's summary judgment on all three of the petitioner's claims. Regarding the claim that the police's use of excessive force violated Mr. King's constitutional right against unreasonable seizure, the appeals court acknowledged that “the level of force that is constitutionally permissible in dealing with a mentally ill person … differs both in degree and in kind from the force that would be justified against a person who has committed a crime or who poses a threat to the community” (King, p 984 (quoting Gray v. Cummings, 917 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2019), p 11). Thus, the court agreed with the petitioner's assertion that officers should approach anyone suspected or known to have mental illness differently than those suspected of criminal activity. In the present case, Mr. King was reportedly known to police as having mental disabilities because they were involved with him during prior psychotic episodes.

The court also referred to a U.S. Supreme Court admonition that the “calculus of reasonableness must embody allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments … about the amount of force that is necessary in a particular situation” (King, p 984 (quoting Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), pp 396-7). The court explained: When addressing the use of deadly force, the court considers whether a reasonable officer in the circumstances would have probable cause to believe that the [person] poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others” (Sanzone v. Gray, 884 F.3d 736, 740 (7th Cir. 2018)). If the person of interest threatens the officer with a weapon, deadly force may be used, because the risk of serious physical harm to the officer has been shown. (Ibid.) This is so even if a less deadly alternative is available to the officers (Plakas v. Drinksi, 19 F.3d 1143, 1149 (7th Cir. 1994)). And this is so whether or not the targeted person suffers from a mental illness—the critical consideration is whether he or she poses an immediate threat to the officers or others (King, p 985).

Thus, given the evidence available in the case, the court said that Mr. King posed an imminent threat to the officers and deadly force was reasonable. The appeals court, however, did appreciate the challenge Mr. King faced in countering the officers' testimony (the only available eyewitness evidence in the case) and that, unfortunately, “the person most likely to rebut the officers' version of the events—the one killed—can't testify” (King, p 985 (quoting Cruz v. City of Anaheim, 765 F.3d 1076 (9th Cir. 2014), p 1079).

Finally, the court deliberated on the petitioner's third claim, that the police violated Mr. King's rights under Title II of the ADA, which states that “no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity” (42 U.S.C. § 12132 (1990)). The petitioner claimed Mr. King's rights were violated by arguing that the police should have acted differently given Mr. King's mental illness.

In its decision, the appeals court separated this claim into two components. First, it addressed whether Title II applies to law enforcement investigations and arrests, Second, if it does apply, it addressed whether law enforcement violated Mr. King's Title II rights. With regard to the first question, the court acknowledged that other circuit courts were split on the matter but ultimately assumed, without deciding, that Title II did apply to the deputies' response to Mr. King. The appeals court also assumed that the county could be held vicariously liable under Title II for the deputies' actions using the “deliberate indifference standard” to judge their actions. Thus, for the petitioner's claim to succeed, he was required to “show that ‘but for’ [Mr. King's] disability, he would have been able to access the services or benefits desired” (King, p 989 (quoting Wis. Cmty. Servs., Inc. v. City of Milwaukee, 465 F.3d 737 (7th Cir. 2006), p 754).

The court stated that, because the police responded quickly to Mr. King's call and there were no available facts to contradict the deputies' testimony that their lives were in danger from Mr. King running at them with a knife, the deputies' response was not discriminatory given their response would have been identical even if Mr. King did not suffer from mental illness, and there was nothing they could have done in this specific scenario to accommodate for his mental illness. The court concluded that “if the decedent was denied access to medical services it was because of his violent, threatening behavior, not because he was mentally disabled” (King, p 989).

In conclusion, the Seventh Circuit unanimously concluded that the police officer's use of deadly force in response to Mr. King's threat to use a knife did not violate his rights under the Fourth Amendment or the ADA, regardless of the fact that Mr. King was mentally ill.