During the nighttime hours of May 13, 2024, Kristopher Handy’s neighbor called 911 to report a disturbance between Handy and his girlfriend. The neighbor reported hearing a woman screaming, “Please stop,” followed by a loud thud against a wall. In addition, the neighbor heard two shots from within Handy’s house. The neighbor also stated that Handy was standing in his driveway holding a shotgun and appeared to be waiting for police to arrive.
Four Anchorage Police Department (APD) officers responded and found that Handy had retreated inside his house. The officers identified themselves and called for Handy to come outside.
Handy came outside with his shotgun. He was ordered multiple times to drop the gun and raise his hands. He continually ignored police commands and at one point yelled, “Fuck you.” Instead, he walked toward the officers while waving the shotgun over his head. The officers responded by shooting at Handy, hitting him nine times and killing him.
The Handy family lawsuit
The plaintiffs (Handy’s family) sued the involved APD officers in federal court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and alleged excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The defendant officers requested that the court dismiss the suit by asserting qualified immunity.
The district court judge denied the officers’ qualified immunity defense. The court ruled that, based upon the facts presented, “the Defendants’ use of deadly force was not objectively reasonable.” The court explained its ruling by quoting a passage from a previous Ninth Circuit opinion in George v. Morris [1]: “law enforcement officials may not kill suspects who do not pose an immediate threat to their safety or to the safety of others simply because they are armed.”
The court ruled that a reasonable fact-finder could conclude that Handy did not pose an immediate threat to the officers or others. The officers filed an appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Reversal by the Ninth Circuit [2]
The Ninth Circuit pointed out that officers are entitled to qualified immunity in civil rights lawsuits “unless (1) they violated a federal statutory or constitutional right, and (2) the unlawfulness of their conduct was ‘clearly established at the time.’” [3]
The court reversed the district court’s decision on qualified immunity because it concluded that the involved officers acted with objective reasonableness [4], i.e., they did not violate Handy’s constitutional right to be free from excessive force.
The court stated that the most important factor in determining whether an officer’s decision to use deadly force is objectively reasonable is whether the subject’s actions presented an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others.
The court ruled that Handy presented an immediate threat to the safety of the officers. The court observed that the officers were aware that: (1) Handy may have assaulted his girlfriend while in possession of a shotgun; (2) Handy waited for officers to arrive while standing in his driveway and holding a shotgun; and (3) Handy refused orders to drop his weapon and belligerently waved the shotgun over his head while advancing toward the officers.
The court explained that although Handy did not directly point the shotgun at the officers, “he remained armed, agitated, and capable of immediately firing at the Defendants.” The court noted that none of the cases cited by the district court suggest “that an officer must wait to be targeted by a suspect before he or she can shoot in self-defense.” [5]
The court concluded by stating, “The undisputed evidence compels the conclusion that Handy posed an immediate threat to the officers.”
Conclusion
This case contains a clear and correct federal appellate holding that police officers face an immediate deadly threat from a subject wielding a firearm even when the subject has not pointed the firearm directly at them. This case reminds me of an earlier Eleventh Circuit opinion with a similar result.
In Montoute v. Carr [6], a Sebring, Florida, officer shot and wounded a subject running away from him while holding a sawed-off shotgun. Notwithstanding the fact that the subject was shot in the back, the court observed that the subject had ignored orders to drop the weapon and there was nothing to prevent him from turning and pointing the shotgun at the officer in a split second. In Montoute, the court ruled that once an order to drop a weapon is ignored, the officer is not required to wait until the subject has drawn a bead upon him before using deadly force. The shooting was justified.
Police chiefs, sheriffs, police union leaders, police attorneys and other law enforcement advocates should ensure that local district attorneys and attorneys general are aware of this case and others like it. They are the potential prosecutors of police officers who are sometimes charged criminally for using deadly force.
It appears to be directly and highly contradictory to charge an officer with murder when federal appellate courts have declared identical or very similar conduct to be within the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution. Knowledge of cases like this should have an impact on prosecutorial charging decisions.
References
1. George v. Morris, 736 F.3d 829 (9th Cir. 2013). George involved officers shooting and killing the decedent after a domestic disturbance. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit chose to reject the defendant officers’ qualified immunity assertions that George pointed a gun directly at them. Instead, the court accepted, for purposes of deciding qualified immunity, the plaintiff’s claim that George did not have the strength to raise a gun from his side and point it at the officers. See my Police1 article on the George case, titled “What the Ninth Circuit got wrong in George v. Morris (and why it still matters now),” published Feb. 25, 2016. In this article, I take the position that the majority opinion in George was simply wrong. The case has a dissenting opinion highly critical of the two-judge majority opinion.
2. Handy v. Jones, No. 25-5105 (9th Cir. Sept. 15, 2026).
3. See District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 62–63 (2018) (quoting Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 664 (2012)). Courts may use either prong as their starting point. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009).
4. The constitutional standard for use of deadly force by a law enforcement officer is whether the officer acted with objective reasonableness. See Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989).
5. The Ninth Circuit cited other cases from federal circuits to support its point that a gun does not need to be directly pointed at officers to justify the use of deadly force: “Our sister circuits agree that an armed belligerent suspect may pose an immediate threat even when the firearm is not pointed at an officer.” See Knibbs v. Momphard, 30 F.4th 200, 222 (4th Cir. 2022) (stating that the circuit had “consistently held” that an officer does not have to wait until a gun is pointed at her before she can take action); see also Estate of Rahim by Rahim v. Doe, 51 F.4th 402, 406 (1st Cir. 2022) (armed suspect who refused to drop his weapon and advanced within twenty-five feet of the officers created a “lethal threat”); see also Garczynski v. Bradshaw, 573 F.3d 1158, 1169 (11th Cir. 2009) (“Even if we assumed that Garczynski did not point his gun in the officers’ direction, the fact that Garczynski did not comply with the officers’ repeated commands to drop his gun justified the use of deadly force under these particular circumstances.”).
6. Montoute v. Carr, 114 F.3d 181 (11th Cir. 1997).
