Curtis Minchuk v. Craig Strand

On May 20, 2013, Merrillville, Indiana police officer Curtis Minchuk was overpowered and attacked by Plaintiff Craig Strand. Plaintiff had illegally parked his semi-truck tractor-trailer in the parking lot of a Planned Parenthood facility; had refused to leave when ordered; had refused to identify himself when ordered; had violently resisted Officer Minchuk’s attempts to physically control him; and, when the two fell to the ground during the ensuing physical struggle, had pinned Officer Minchuk to the ground by the throat and beaten him about the face and head, ignoring his cry for help, before suddenly and unexpectedly making a gesture of surrender. Officer Minchuk, feeling the effects of repeated blows to the head and looking up at the unsubdued Plaintiff, who loomed over Officer Minchuk just a few feet away from him, and from where Plaintiff could have resumed his attack just as suddenly and unexpectedly as he had stopped, shot and wounded Plaintiff. The questions presented are: 1. Whether evidence of a dangerous and violent suspect’s sudden and unexpected gesture of surrender immediately and objectively terminates the deadly threat that that suspect had created, such that a police officer is no longer justified in using deadly force in selfdefense under the Fourth Amendment, or whether, as the Fifth and Tenth Circuits have held, the totality-of-the-circumstances analysis continues to apply even where there is evidence -i-