Crane v. City of Arlington, Texas

Opinion begins with very quotable and helpful dicta concerning pretextual stops; officer not entitled to qualified immunity for shooting driver where material factual disputes existed; clearly established for qualified immunity purposes that using deadly force against unarmed, albeit non-compliant, driver held in choke hold in parked car would be Fourth Amendment violation; although defendant officer claimed he had a reasonable fear that driver was armed, “[shooting officer] could see if [driver] was reaching for a gun, as could the other officers outside the vehicle, yet none of them—including [shooting officer]—reported a suspicion of a weapon. [Shooting officer] could not have reasonably suspected that [driver] had a weapon.”; “this Court considers the speed with which an officer resorts to force where officers deliberately, and rapidly, eschew lesser responses when such means are plainly available and obviously recommended by the situation”; officer pointing gun at passengers did not rise to level of a constitutional violation.