Thursday, March 12, 2026
Page 4
Ninth Circuit:
No Qualified Immunity for Officers in 17-Minute Handcuffing
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that qualified immunity was justifiably denied to police officers who, after a call was received reporting a light-skinned Hispanic toting a gun in a shopping plaza parking lot, spotted a man not matching that description leaning into the open window of a car with a woman in the driver’s seat and, suspecting that a gun was being handed to her, effected an arrest of the motorist.
As recounted in Tuesday’s memorandum opinion, the officers of the City of Fairfield, in Solano County, drew their weapons, ordered the woman, Danielle N. Houston, to get out of her car, frisked her, and kept her handcuffed in the back of a police car for 17 minutes—even though it was determined in two-and-a-half minutes that there was no weapon in her vehicle. The opination—signed by Circuit Judges Jacqueline H. Nguyen and Gabriel P. Sanchez and by Senior Circuit Judge N. Randy Smith—affirms an order by District Court Judge John A. Mendez of the Eastern District of California denying summary judgment to Officers Brendan Bassi and David Reeves.
“[T]he officers’ means of detention were overly intrusive,” the judges said, and “exceeded the limits” of a temporary stop to search for weapons, authorized by the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Terry v. Ohio.
They recited that Houston “complied with all the officers’ requests and gave no indication that she posed a threat to them or was a flight risk” and “after confirming that Houston had no weapons on her and that the man with the gun was not in her car, the officers nevertheless handcuffed her and placed her in the patrol car.” The judges noted that the men in the parking lot, with whom Houston appeared to be interacting, did not match the description of the man who was reportedly armed, declaring:
“[A]reasonable jury could conclude the officers committed a constitutional violation by arresting Houston without probable cause through deploying overly intrusive and aggressive means of detention. Such a constitutional violation has been clearly established under Ninth Circuit precedent.”
The opinion adds:
“Further, the constitutional violation at issue, the unreasonable prolonging of Houston’s detention, has been clearly established by our precedent.”
The case is Houston v. Reeves, 24-7268.
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