Monday, December 8, 2025
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Bress Accuses Two Ninth Circuit Colleagues of Fact-Twisting in Case of Police Shooting
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Daniel Aaron Bress, in a dissenting opinion filed Friday, accused the majority—comprised of Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. and Senior Judge Sidney Thomas—of twisting the facts in their memorandum opinion affirming the denial of summary judgment to a police officer who claimed entitlement to qualified immunity in connection with a non-fatal shooting of a suspect.
The majority opinion affirms the Jan. 29 decision by District Court Judge Sallie Kim of the Northern District of California that triable issues of fact exist as to whether San Francisco Police Officer Christopher Flores was justified on Dec, 7, 2019 in firing a shot at plaintiff Jamaica Hampton.
Flores was then a trainee. He was in the company of Field Training Officer Sterling Hayes when Hampton approached them.
Cuts Flores
He struck Hayes with a glass bottle, then attacked Flores, causing multiple lacerations and a concussion.
Hampton ran off; Hayes and Flores pursued him; Hayes shot at him six times; the suspect fell to the ground.
Seconds after he had fallen, Flores fired a shot at him. The incident was recorded on Hayes’s body camera.
Mendoza, an appointee of President Joseph Biden, and Thomas, chosen by President Bill Clinton, wrote that “Flores shooting Hampton when he was unarmed, wounded, but had previously injured the officers with something other than a gun violated Hampton’s clearly established constitutional rights,” ruling out qualified immunity.
Bress’s View
Bress, placed on the court by President Donald Trump, protested in his dissent:
“As for the circumstances at the moment Flores shot Hampton, the majority’s characterization leaves out the critical facts and materially understates the threat that Flores (and Hayes) faced. Three times, the majority says that Hampton was ‘unable to get off the ground’ ‘at the time’ of Flores’s shot. However, the video plainly shows Hampton starting to stand up at the time Flores fired his shot—just seconds after Hayes’s volley caused him to fall to the ground. As the district court accurately described it, Hampton at this point moved into a ‘kneeling lunge position.’ Then Flores fired his shot, and Hampton fell back to the ground.”
He continued:
“The majority’s characterization of Hampton as ‘unable to get off the ground’ would describe Hampton at some point after Flores’s shot—but it ignores Hampton’s clear attempt to stand which led to that shot. This is not a case where the video is ambiguous and Hampton’s movement is susceptible to multiple interpretations. The parties do not dispute that Hampton was attempting to stand up when Flores fired his shot, the district court acknowledged as much, and this key fact was the central basis for Hampton’s appeal. Yet the majority completely fails to address this defining feature of the encounter or the impact it has on the clearly-established-law analysis.”
The case is Hampton v. Flores, 25-752.
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