6th Circuit Rejects Immunity for Lawrenceburg Police Captain - Articles

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Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on May 13, 2022

The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has stripped a Tennessee police captain of qualified immunity for the 2018 fatal shooting of a mentally ill man, Tennessee Lookout reports. The court said that Lawrenceburg Police Department Captain David Russ is not protected from a civil rights lawsuit because his use of deadly force against Randy Thomas Groom was excessive and unjustified. The court found that although Groom was armed with a knife, held at his side, he did not pose an imminent threat to Russ or anyone else. The decision reverses a ruling from U.S. District Judge William L. Campbell Jr., who had dismissed the lawsuit.