Federal Appeals Court revives lawsuit against Greensboro police officer in fatal shooting

Image from greensboro-nc.gov

Listen to this story (7 minutes)

  • The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a mother's lawsuit against the Greensboro police officer who shot her 17-year-old son to death in 2022.
  • Appellate judges agreed the trial court should not have relied on the officer's dashcam video to justify throwing the case out.
  • The unanimous three-judge panel upheld the trial court's decision to throw out the lawsuit against the city.

A federal Appeals Court has ruled that a mother can proceed with her lawsuit against the Greensboro police officer who fatally shot her 17-year-old son in 2022. Appellate judges agreed that a trial judge should not have used the officer’s dashcam video to justify throwing the case out.

Officer Matthew Sletten killed Nasanto Antonio Crenshaw as Crenshaw tried to drive away from the officer in a parking lot in a car reported as stolen. Wakita Doriety, Crenshaw’s mother, sued Sletten and the city. She claimed Sletten used excessive force, violating her son’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Chief US District Judge Catherine Eagles dismissed all claims against both the city and the police officer. Eagles relied on evidence from Sletten’s video recording of the encounter.

“Contrary to the plaintiff’s allegations in her amended complaint, the court found based on the video that the stolen car driven by Crenshaw in a parking lot ‘was moving directly towards’ the officer,” according to the appellate decision.

“We affirm the district court’s dismissal of the claims against the City. However, we conclude that the district court erred in granting Officer Sletten’s motion to dismiss, because the video recording did not ‘blatantly contradict’ the allegations of the amended complaint,” wrote Judge Barbara Milano Keenan for a unanimous three-judge panel of the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals. “We hold that the plaintiff’s allegations of excessive force, … when properly construed, are sufficient to state a claim. We therefore reverse the district court’s judgment in favor of Officer Sletten on the excessive force claim and remand that claim to the court for further proceedings.”

The 4th Circuit also revived Doriety’s state law claims against Sletten of assault and battery, wrongful death, and “in the alternative, negligent wrongful death or gross negligence.”

“According to the plaintiff’s allegations, as Crenshaw was attempting to elude Officer Sletten, the officer fired his weapon into the front windshield of the stolen car,” Kennan wrote. “At the time Officer Sletten first fired his weapon, the officer ‘was not in the path of [the] moving vehicle.’” The plaintiff further alleged that when Crenshaw drove past Officer Sletten ‘at a low rate of speed,’ the officer fired ‘additional shots’ into the passenger side of the stolen car. The car then came to a stop.”

Three shots struck Crenshaw, who died at the scene.

“Officer Sletten contended that Crenshaw ‘accelerated’ the stolen car ‘directly toward’ the officer, and that Officer Sletten fired his weapon in self-defense,” Kennan wrote. “In making this contention, Officer Sletten relied on a ‘publicly available’ video recording taken from the officer’s body-worn camera (the video). The officer asked the district court to consider the video because ‘it is integral to and was apparently relied on’ by the plaintiff in her complaint.”

“Crenshaw had refused to stop the stolen car upon command, had swiped the officer’s patrol vehicle with the stolen car, and ‘undisput[ably]’ had driven ‘straight towards Officer Sletten’ when Officer Sletten fired ‘a few shots in quick and immediate succession,’” the 4th Circuit opinion added. “Further, the district court concluded that it was apparent that Officer Sletten ‘stopped firing when it was clear [that] the [stolen] car had turned away’ from the officer. The district court held that the officer’s ‘split-second judgment to fire a weapon when faced with an immediate and obvious threat of serious physical harm from a deadly weapon,’ namely, the stolen car, ‘was not unreasonable as a matter of law.’”

Doriety’s lawsuit marks the first time the 4th Circuit has ruled on a trial judge’s use of a video recording when deciding whether to dismiss a case, Keenan explained.

“[W]e hold that a district court can consider a video submitted at the motion to dismiss stage when (1) the video is ‘integral’ to the complaint and its authenticity is not challenged, but (2) only to the extent that the video ‘clearly depicts a set of facts contrary to those alleged in the complaint,’ or ‘blatantly contradicts’ the plaintiff’s allegations, rendering the plaintiff’s allegations implausible,” she wrote.

Appellate judges disagreed with Eagles’ interpretation of the video.

“[T]he video does not demonstrate the entire direction in which the stolen car was moving in relation to where the officer stood, including whether or when Crenshaw ‘turned’ the stolen car to the left away from the officer,” Keenan wrote. “Given these uncertainties, the district court was not permitted to find contrary to the allegations and reasonable inferences arising from the amended complaint that Crenshaw drove the car ‘directly’ at the officer ‘for approximately one second,’ and that the officer ceased firing his weapon when the stolen car turned away from the officer.”

“Because the video recording did not blatantly contradict the plaintiff’s allegations regarding the location of the officer and the trajectory of the moving car at the time each shot was fired, the district court erred in construing the facts in a manner inconsistent with the plaintiff’s allegations,” the Appeals Court opinion continued. “Based on the plaintiff’s allegations, a reasonable officer in Officer Sletten’s position would not think that the stolen car, which was moving away from the officer, posed a significant and immediate threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer that would justify his conduct of firing one shot through the car’s windshield and additional shots through the car’s passenger window.”

Judges James Wynn and DeAndres Gist Benjamin joined Keenan’s opinion.

Related