Virgil Brewer v. Kristina Myers

While conducting a house-to-house search for a suspect who had threatened people in a bar with a shotgun after being thrown out of that bar for fighting, the suspect was found hiding in a shed behind a house. The suspect—not complying with commands to put his hands up and get on the ground and while shouting and being belligerent—advanced half the distance from the shed towards Petitioner Brewer who fired a beanbag round at the suspect, which caused the suspect’s death. Before denying qualified immunity to an officer, this Court requires that existing precedent place the “constitutional question beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al–Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011). The questions presented are: Question 1: Whether there is a clearly established right not to be shot with a less than lethal beanbag projectile at close range. Question 2: Whether a court of appeals is free to ignore the facts shown in video and considered by the district court on a motion to dismiss. Question 3: Whether the courts below addressed the issue of qualified immunity and clearly established law at too high a level of generality contrary to this Court’s instruction in Kisela v. Hughes, 138 S.Ct. 1148 (2018), White v. Pauly, 137 S.Ct. 548 (2017), and Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731.