Aden v. City of Bloomington, 2025 WL 467618 (8th Cir. 2025)
Isak Aden accused his ex-girlfriend of sharing explicit pictures of him. The ex-girlfriend reported Aden had pointed a gun at her and ordered her to drive away from her residence. As she drove to a nearby shopping mall, the girlfriend veered into the oncoming traffic lane in an attempt to attract attention. She stopped the car and ran away. Aden also ran from the car, fleeing into a wooded area. A bystander reported hearing a gunshot come from the area where Aden had fled. During subsequent negotiations, Aden said that he accidentally dropped the gun and it fired.
Approximately 45 minutes after the initial 911 call, officers saw Aden crossing a road into an industrial parking lot next to a commercial building. The man was holding the gun to his head as he walked. He sat on the curb, facing the parking lot, with his back to the building. Aden kept his gun aimed at his head. Officers with drawn guns ordered Aden to put the gun down, but he ignored them. Negotiators spoke with Aden, first with a loudspeaker and then with a cell phone. He briefly put down the gun but then picked it up again.
Within the next hour or so, 80 officers from eight departments arrived, including several SWAT teams. Four snipers maintained aim at Aden from various points. A SWAT negotiator took over dialogue with Aden from the safety of a Bearcat armored vehicle. After three hours of negotiations, the gun was on the ground, about three feet from Aden’s right side. Aden moved slightly toward the gun. He told officers that he was “not willing to go to jail tonight.”
Command officers devised a plan to capture Aden. Three officers were directed to through noise-flash distraction devices toward Aden and two officers were directed to fire 40mm impact rounds at Aden’s left side. Command officers believed Aden would react to his left, away from the gun on his right, and a contact team could quickly secure him. Officers were assigned to provide lethal cover.
“The best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft a-gley,” wrote Robert Burns*. Unfortunately, the plan to capture Aden went a “little haywire.” Instead of falling to the left and away from the gun, Aden moved to his right, grabbed the gun with his right hand and began to raise it. Five officers fired. Eleven rounds struck Aden, killing him. Aden’s next of kin sued.
The trial court partially denied the officer’s assertion of qualified immunity. The officers and their employing cities appealed. The court of appeals began its discussion quoting the Supreme Court’s frequent observation that “qualified immunity gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments” and “protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law” (Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731 (2011)).
A claim of excessive force essentially alleges that officers violated the Fourth Amendment prohibition against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Courts apply a totality of the circumstances approach in determining the reasonableness of force used to effect a seizure, applying the Graham v. Connor factors: “the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight” (Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989)).
The court of appeals recognized officers reasonably suspected Aden had committed a serious crime of domestic violence assault with a gun. Aden was actively resisting the officers’ efforts to arrest him by refusing to surrender, refusing to move away from his gun and telling officers that he was “not willing to go to jail tonight.” Finally, Aden posed an immediate threat through his erratic behavior, refusing to cooperate with negotiators and moving closer to his gun. The court opined the officers created a reasonable plan with less-lethal tools. It also held the trial court erred in relying on opinions from the plaintiff’s expert witnesses Jeffrey Noble and Robert Prevot that the tactical plan was unreasonable and that there was no emergency, in sharp contrast to the testimony of the officers at the scene.
* Though Robert Burns said it first, John Steinbeck adapted the quote for his novel Of Mice and Men in 1937. Perhaps Charlie Chan said it best: “Best laid plans of mice and men sometimes, uh, go a little bit haywire, huh?” (The Trap 1947).
