PHILADELPHIA – A federal judge has dismissed the majority of claims brought by a man who was shot inside a sports bar when trained violence de-escalators used him as a human shield, when attempting to defuse an armed altercation with another patron.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro issued a memorandum opinion to that effect on Aug. 1, in Marcel Boddie’s lawsuit versus the City of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Anti-Drug Anti-Violence Network, Henny’s Sports Bar and other defendants.
“In 2018, the City of Philadelphia established the Community Crisis Intervention Program (CCIP) to reduce violence in Philadelphia’s most dangerous neighborhoods. The program, funded by the City, solicits and employs individuals with prior criminal convictions, including violent offenders, to patrol city streets and prevent violent crimes. The CCIP coordinates with the Philadelphia Police Department to aid the CCIP’s objective of reducing violent crime. The CCIP and the PPD work together and the City uses daily shooting reports supplied by the PPD to direct and control the activities, placement, and location of CCIP advocates. The CCIP is overseen by Shondell Revell of the City’s Office of Violence Prevention, and Erica Atwood of the City’s Office of Policy and Strategic Initiatives for Criminal Justice. Defendants Revell and Atwood are directly responsible for the oversight, staffing and funding of the CCIP. The City also contracts with the Philadelphia Anti-Drug/Anti-Violence Network and/or the Urban Affairs Coalition to manage the operation of the CCIP,” Quiñones Alejandro said.
“In 2019, UAC and/or PAAN hired Defendant Antonio Jardine as a CCIP advocate. Jardine was tasked with intervening in violent altercations in the City’s most violent neighborhoods as a ‘violence interrupter.’ At the time Jardine was hired, the City was aware of Jardine’s violent criminal history, which included prior firearm offenses. Jardine and the other ‘violence interrupters’ received no training in mediation, de-escalation, or violence prevention. At some point during his employment, Jardine began ‘exhibiting erratic behavior.’ On April 29, 2022, Haneef Bailey, Jardine’s CCIP advocate partner, raised concerns to the City about working with Jardine. The following day, Bailey refused to work alongside Jardine, signing out of his shift immediately after signing in. Later that evening, Jardine was on duty as a CCIP advocate, patrolling the streets of Philadelphia. During his shift, and while ‘wearing his PAAN provided attire and driving his PAAN/City provided vehicle,’ Jardine drove to Henny’s Sports Bar and went inside, armed with a firearm. When Jardine entered, Plaintiff was a ‘business invitee’ at Henny’s Sports Bar.”
While inside the bar, Jardine became involved in an altercation with another individual that quickly turned violent. Boddie, a patron, attempted to de-escalate the altercation when Jardine and the other individual involved in the altercation brandished their firearms.
Suddenly, Jardine grabbed the plaintiff and pulled the plaintiff in front of him. Using the plaintiff as a human shield, Jardine began discharging his firearm at the other individual. Boddie was hit by the returning gunfire, resulting in, gunshot wounds, comminuted fractures of the radial head, radial diaphysis and distal ulnar diaphysis which required surgery, resulting in skin discoloration, permanent scarring, nerve damage, and musculoskeletal injuries.
In August 2022, the American Institutes for Research published a report commissioned by the City, detailing the failures of the City in its “administration, management, oversight and operation of the CCIP”, and the failures of the CCIP, including that CCIP advocates “did not receive training, or received inadequate training in areas including violence prevention, crisis intervention and violence interruption.”
The City of Philadelphia moved to dismiss the plaintiff’s claims for a state-created danger theory of liability (Count I), Monell (Count II) and negligence (Count IV).
“Plaintiff’s amended complaint…fails to allege facts sufficient to plausibly show that the ultimate harm (being shot) had a ‘direct causal connection’ to the City defendants’ alleged creation, implementation and oversight of the CCIP. Specifically, plaintiff alleges that he was shot by the oncoming gunfire of a random bar patron after intervening in a conflict between said other bar patron and Jardine. As noted, the ultimate harm suffered resulted from plaintiff being shot. As alleged in the amended complaint, the only actions having a direct causal connection to plaintiff’s gunshot wounds are those actions of the random bar patron and, arguably, though more remotely, Jardine. The City defendants’ alleged actions – creating a program and hiring individuals like Jardine who had prior violent histories – is too attenuated from the ultimate harm suffered to be a direct cause,” Quiñones Alejandro stated.
“As noted by the Third Circuit, ‘a distinction exists between harm that occurs to an identifiable or discrete individual under the circumstances and harm that occurs to a ‘random’ individual with no connection to the harm-causing party.’ Here, like the plaintiff in Phillips v. City of Allegheny, plaintiff was a random individual at a bar with no alleged connection to either the other random bar patron who shot plaintiff or Jardine.”
The judge noted that the plaintiff also “fails to allege any facts to support the existence of any relationship or contact between the City defendants and plaintiff, or any facts to support a relationship between Jardine and plaintiff and knowledge of such relationship by the City defendants.”
As such, the judge granted the motion to dismiss the state-created danger claim and likewise found that the Monell claims against the individual defendants were also ripe for dismissal – but not those against the City.
“Specifically, City defendants argue that because plaintiff sued defendants Atwood and Revell in their official capacities along with the City, the motion to dismiss the Monell claims against Atwood and Revell should be granted because, in essence, the City and defendants Atwood and Revell are ‘in fact one defendant.’ This Court agrees. Accordingly, all Monell claims against defendants Atwood and Revell in their official capacities are dismissed. City defendants’ argument as it pertains to the City is, however, unpersuasive. As to the City, a municipality, like the City, cannot be held liable for the unconstitutional acts of its employees on a theory of respondeat superior. Generally, a municipality can only be held liable under Section 1983 where the alleged violation of the plaintiff’s constitutional rights was caused by either a policy or custom of the municipality,” Quiñones Alejandro said.
“In this case, plaintiff alleges facts showing that the City implemented a program/policy, i.e., the CCIP, and knowingly hired convicted violent felons (including those with firearm offenses) to serve as ‘violence interrupters’ in Philadelphia’s high-crime neighborhoods, with the very aim of reducing violence in those neighborhoods. Despite hiring these individuals (convicted violent felons) to serve as ‘violence interrupters,’ plaintiff alleges that the City provided them with no training in community re-entry, conflict resolution, mediation and/or de-escalation. In light of the alleged purpose of this program/policy, i.e., to reduce violence in Philadelphia’s most violent communities, it was reasonably predictable that the ‘violence interrupters’ would frequently and repeatedly confront violent situations. Indeed, that is precisely what they were hired to do. It is equally predictable that in the absence of any training in conflict resolution, mediation, and/or de-escalation that these ‘violence interrupters’ would not know how to properly handle the situation and would violate the rights of those with whom they come into contact when confronting a predictable violent situation.”
Thus, Quiñones Alejandro found that the plaintiff “has pled sufficient facts to plausibly assert a Monell claim against the City, specifically that the City failed to train CCIP advocates (like Jardine) in community re-entry, conflict resolution, mediation and/or de-escalation satisfying the pleading standard for deliberate indifference when considering the frequency with which these ‘violence interrupters’ could reasonably be expected to confront violent altercations and the likelihood that the failure to train these ‘violence interrupters’ would result in constitutional violations.”
At the present time, the Court then found that there existed a high degree of probability that the City’s “violence interrupters,” like Jardine, would frequently and repeatedly face violent situations. Since the “violence interrupters” were tasked with de-escalating these predictable violent situations, this Court finds that plaintiff’s factual allegations equally support the requisite causation for a Monell claim.
The judge then granted the City defendants’ motion to dismiss the state-created danger claims, granted the City defendants’ motion to dismiss the Monell claims as to Atwood and Revell only and finally, granted the City defendants’ motion to dismiss the negligence claims.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:24-cv-01393
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com