Vasquez v. Clarkstown Police Officer

Background

Kim Vasquez proceeded without a lawyer and sued Detective Chris G. Maloney, Officer Victor Carabello, Detective Orlando Cruz, Officer Brian Dunne, Detective Brian Callahan, and Officer Thomas LaTorre under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged that the defendants violated the First and Fourth Amendments and state law during a January 5, 2015 encounter outside a Target store at the Palisades Center Mall.

Police were investigating counterfeit-money activity at the store. Detective Cruz saw Vasquez on a security camera and told Detective Maloney that Vasquez might have an arrest warrant. Officer LaTorre approached Vasquez. Several officers surrounded him, instructed him to remain still, placed him against a wall, required him to raise his hands, frisked him, and removed his wallet. Vasquez was detained while officers checked whether the warrant remained active. He estimated that he was released after about two minutes, although he was uncertain about the timing. The opinion states that the warrant was no longer active by January 5, 2015.

The defendants moved for summary judgment, which asks whether the evidence shows that no reasonable jury could find for the opposing party. Vasquez moved to suppress the transcript of his February 21, 2019 deposition, arguing that it was incomplete, was not conducted before an authorized officer, and lacked agreed stipulations.

Deposition-Transcript Motion

The court denied Vasquez’s motion to suppress. It found no transcript error based on the omission of an off-the-record conversation about pain medication. It also found that the court reporter was authorized to administer oaths and that the transcript contained the information required by the federal rules, including the officer’s identity, the deposition details, the oath, and the identities of persons present. Because the court rejected Vasquez’s substantive objections, it declined to reject the transcript in whole or in part.

Fourth Amendment Claims

The court held that Vasquez’s stop, detention, and frisk constituted a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. The defendants argued that they had probable cause because they believed an arrest warrant was outstanding, or alternatively that they had reasonable suspicion to conduct a brief investigative stop and frisk.

The court rejected the warrant argument at summary judgment. Although an arrest warrant had been issued and the police department had been notified of it, the warrant was no longer outstanding before the encounter. The officers asked a dispatcher to check the warrant but did not wait for confirmation before detaining and frisking Vasquez. The court held that conducting the search and seizure before confirming the warrant’s status was unreasonable as a matter of law. It distinguished cases involving officers who relied on warrant information that was later shown to be incorrect because of a clerical error or similar problem.

The court also held that the defendants lacked reasonable suspicion for an investigative stop. Vasquez’s prior arrests, the officers’ belief that he might be the subject of a warrant, and the fact that police were investigating counterfeit activity at the mall did not provide specific facts suggesting that Vasquez was involved in criminal activity. The court emphasized that a person’s criminal history alone cannot justify an investigative stop.

The court nevertheless granted summary judgment on Vasquez’s claim that the pat-down involved unconstitutional inappropriate contact. The frisk lasted only seconds, and Vasquez presented no evidence that the contact was sexual in nature. The court concluded that the alleged contact did not rise to the level of a Fourth Amendment violation.

The court denied the defendants’ request for qualified immunity on the surviving unreasonable-search-and-seizure claim. Qualified immunity can protect officials unless they violated a constitutional right that was clearly established at the time. The court concluded that a reasonable officer would have understood that searching Vasquez without first obtaining more information about the warrant, and stopping him based only on an unparticularized suspicion, was unlawful.

First Amendment Claims

The court granted summary judgment on the religious-freedom claim. Although Vasquez stated in his summary-judgment papers that he had been a practicing Muslim, the operative complaint did not appear to include allegations about religion or religious exercise. The record also did not show that the officers knew Vasquez’s religion, acted because of it, or substantially burdened a central religious belief.

The court also granted summary judgment on the intimate-association claim involving Vasquez’s wife and daughters. Vasquez said the encounter harmed his family’s view of him and prevented him from kissing his wife hello. The court found no evidence that the defendants’ conduct sufficiently impaired those family relationships or that the defendants took action against Vasquez’s wife or children.

State-Law Claims

The court granted summary judgment on the state-law claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress and assault and battery. For the emotional-distress claim, the court found no evidence that the defendants intended to cause, or disregarded a substantial probability of causing, severe emotional distress. It also found no objective medical support for the claimed distress; Vasquez testified about headaches and self-medication but did not seek medical or psychological treatment specifically related to the encounter.

For assault and battery, the court applied the objective-reasonableness standard used for excessive-force claims. It found that the officers used limited force in conducting the brief pat-down and that the force was not objectively unreasonable under the circumstances.

Disposition

The court denied Vasquez’s motion to suppress the deposition transcript. It granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. Summary judgment was granted on the Fourth Amendment inappropriate-contact claim, the First Amendment religious-freedom and intimate-association claims, and the state-law claims. Vasquez’s Fourth Amendment unreasonable-search-and-seizure claim remained. The court directed the parties to confer and submit a case-management plan by May 1, 2020.