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Court denies summary judgment to officer who shot armed suspect

JESSICA SHAMBAUGH
Special to the Legal News

Published: August 20, 2014

A three-judge appellate panel for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the released an opinion recently affirming the denial of a police officer’s motion for qualified immunity after he shot an armed suspect.

The case stemmed from a violent argument between brothers Jacob Ragsdale and Lloyd Provitt.

The facts of the case state that the squabble began over a $3 debt.

“What seemed like a trivial dispute soon escalated,” Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote for the court.

Ragsdale eventually retreated into his girlfriend’s house and Provitt kicked in the back door.

Ragsdale then ran upstairs, grabbed a gun he kept for protection and fired a warning shot from the top of the stairs into the wall below.

From outside the house, Provitt called the police and Akron police officers Joseph Sidoti and Christopher Seiler responded to the scene.

The parties dispute what happened after the officers arrived.

Ragsdale insists he took one step outside the side door while holding his gun and Sidoti immediately shot him in the elbow.

Ragsdale told the court that the officers gave no commands prior to firing.

After being shot, Ragsdale said he dropped his gun and fled to his neighbor’s garage while dodging “a barrage of bullets.”

Sidoti told a different story and said he heard Seiler tell Ragsdale to drop his weapon after the man exited the house.

The next thing he knew, Sidoti said Ragsdale was running toward him in the dark holding what appeared to be a weapon.

Sidoti said he turned on the light mounted to his rifle, saw the gun’s wooden stock rising to Ragsdale’s shoulder and shot 14 rounds to defend himself.

The officers found Ragsdale in the neighbor’s garage, wounded with his rifle leaning on a nearby dog kennel.

Ragsdale ultimately sued Sidoti alleging that he used constitutionally excessive force in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Sidoti moved for summary judgment and asserted that he should be granted qualified immunity because he was acting in the line of duty.

Judge David Dowd of the Northern District Court of Ohio denied that motion, identifying several lingering material facts, including whether Ragsdale was threatening Sidoti, where Ragsdale was at the time of the shooting, whether verbal commands were given, where Sidoti was standing and how Ragsdale was holding his weapon.

Sidoti appealed that decision to the 6th Circuit.

“Consistent with the district court’s decision, a reasonable jury could find that Officer Sidoti violated Ragsdale’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from an unreasonable seizure involving potentially lethal force,” Judge Sutton wrote for the court.

The appellate panel found Ragsdale’s testimony established he was shot without warning immediately after exiting the house.

It maintained that the forensic evidence was not so overwhelmingly in favor of the officer that a jury would have to find Ragsdale’s testimony unbelievable.

The judges noted that a ballistics expert testified that the empty cartridges, bullet holes and shrapnel suggested that Ragsdale was not where he said he was when the shooting took place.

They further mentioned that the rifle being found in the garage contrasted Ragsdale’s version of events.

Nevertheless, the ballistics expert acknowledged that his reconstruction of the events is not the only reasonable approximation of what happened.

“Assuming as we must on summary judgment that Ragsdale is telling the truth, we must conclude that Ragsdale has created a material issue of fact about whether Officer Sidoti’s actions amounted to objectively unreasonable force,” Judge Sutton stated.

Based on that conclusion, the circuit judges affirmed Dowd’s ruling that Sidoti was not entitled to summary judgment and overruled his appeal.

Judges Julia Smith Gibbons and Helene White joined Judge Sutton to form the majority.

The case is cited Ragsdale v. Sidoti, case No. 14-3009.

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