Ramirez v. Granado: Disputed Threat Perception Bars Qualified Immunity for Deadly Force Against a Fleeing Suspect

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Date: December 30, 2025
Posture: Reversal of summary judgment granting qualified immunity

1. Introduction

Ramirez v. Granado arises from a fatal police shooting at the end of a late-night vehicle pursuit in Lake Worth, Texas. Plaintiff-Appellant Juanita Ramirez—personally and as representative of the Estate of Estevan Ramirez—sued Officer Jonathan Granado under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The district court granted summary judgment to Officer Granado on qualified-immunity grounds, concluding his use of deadly force was reasonable.

The Fifth Circuit reversed, holding that the summary-judgment record contains genuine disputes of material fact about what Officer Granado perceived and whether Ramirez posed an immediate threat at the time of the later shots—disputes that must be resolved by a jury.

Key issues: (i) whether deadly force was objectively reasonable under Graham v. Connor at the “precise time of the shooting,” and (ii) whether the unlawfulness—under Plaintiff’s version of facts—was clearly established.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The panel (per curiam) held that Plaintiff produced enough evidence to create triable fact disputes on the core “immediate threat” question: after an initial shot fired while Ramirez was near Officer Watson, Officer Granado fired six additional rounds without warning as Ramirez ran away; four bullets struck Ramirez in the back of the head and shoulders. The court emphasized conflicting accounts and physical/video evidence on whether: (1) Officer Granado actually perceived Ramirez was armed during the shooting, and (2) Ramirez pointed or “swung” a gun toward officers while fleeing.

On clearly established law, the court relied on long-standing principles—especially that deadly force against a fleeing suspect is unreasonable absent an immediate threat to officers or others—citing Fifth Circuit and Supreme Court authority.

Disposition: the court REVERSED summary judgment and REMANDED for further proceedings.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

The majority’s holding is built on two pillars: (a) the summary-judgment viewing standard (credit the nonmovant; don’t resolve credibility), and (b) Fourth Amendment deadly-force doctrine focusing on the moment force is used and the presence (or absence) of an immediate threat.

A. Summary-judgment/record-viewing rules (why fact disputes defeat qualified immunity at this stage)

Tolan v. Cotton: The court repeatedly invokes Tolan for the rule that, at summary judgment, evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and all reasonable inferences drawn in her favor—particularly important when the officer’s later narrative conflicts with contemporaneous evidence.
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.: Cited for the core limitation on judges at summary judgment—no credibility determinations, no weighing evidence, and no choosing between competing inferences.
Saucier v. Katz (Ginsburg, J., concurring): Quoted for the proposition that when an excessive-force claim turns on which of two conflicting stories is correct, summary judgment is improper.
Fifth Circuit procedural authorities framing de novo review and burdens: Crane v. City of Arlington, Tex. (de novo review; immediate threat predominates in deadly force), Aguirre v. City of San Antonio (plaintiff’s burden to rebut qualified immunity), and Darden v. City of Fort Worth (draw all justifiable inferences for the nonmovant).
Credibility/record conflicts: Deville v. Marcantel and Thomas v. Great Atl. & Pac. Tea Co. are used to underscore that, where key-witness credibility looms large, the case belongs to the factfinder.

B. Fourth Amendment excessive-force framework (the substantive test)

Graham v. Connor: Provides the objective-reasonableness test and the three familiar considerations: severity of crime, immediate threat, and resistance/flight.
Barnes v. Felix (U.S. 2025) and Cnty. of Los Angeles v. Mendez: Cited for analyzing the “totality of the circumstances,” while emphasizing that “the situation at the precise time of the shooting” is often decisive because that is the choice under review.
Bell v. Wolfish: The source of the phrasing incorporated into Graham’s balancing.
Bush v. Strain: Supplies the Fifth Circuit’s three-part articulation for a Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim (injury; directly caused by excessive force; objectively unreasonable force).
Tennessee v. Garner: The controlling deadly-force principle: deadly force may not be used against a fleeing suspect who poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others.
Shot-by-shot reasonableness: Mason v. Lafayette City-Par. Consol. Gov't and Roque v. Harvel are cited for separating initial and subsequent shots; force that is justified at one moment can become unjustified once the justification ceases. This theme is reinforced by Lytle v. Bexar Cnty., Tex..
Physical evidence as reasonableness proof: Baker v. Putnal is central to the court’s use of wound trajectories (back-to-front bullet paths) as evidence the suspect was not facing the officer—creating a serious fact question about reasonableness.
Reframing “crime severity” and passenger status: In footnote analysis, the court points to Texas law and cites Smith v. Lee to clarify that being labeled “armed and dangerous” is not itself a “severity of crime” input; and it notes the fleeing-driver offense does not automatically attach to a passenger.

C. Limits of “officer need not wait” / furtive-gesture cases

Officer Granado invoked Salazar-Limon v. City of Hous. for the idea that officers need not wait until a suspect turns with a weapon before using deadly force. The majority distinguished that line as typically involving suspects reaching into hidden areas or making furtive gestures.
The majority’s distinction is illustrated by cases it cites as examples of the furtive-gesture paradigm: Ontiveros v. City of Rosenberg, Tex., Reese v. Anderson, and Young v. City of Killeen, Tex.. The court reasoned those cases are not a neat fit where (as Plaintiff contends) the suspect was fleeing, remained in view, and did not gesture threateningly.

D. Clearly established law (why the court deemed the right “beyond debate” under Plaintiff’s facts)

The court relies on Lytle v. Bexar Cnty., Tex. and Baker v. Putnal to state the clearly established rule: absent other justification, it is unreasonable to use deadly force against a fleeing felon who does not pose a sufficient threat of harm to the officer or others.
The en banc decision Cole v. Carson reinforces that, when competing factual narratives determine whether force was justified, it is for the jury—“not judges”—to resolve those narratives.

E. The concurrence and dissent’s “citation war” (and what it shows about the case)

Judge Dennis’s concurrence focuses on two alleged dissent errors: resolving factual disputes at summary judgment and relying on cases that involve overt threats or concealed-weapon “furtive reach” scenarios, unlike Plaintiff’s version here. The concurrence references additional authorities embedded in that critique, including White v. Pauly, Kingsley v. Hendrickson, and Fifth Circuit guidance on what matters at the moment of force (citing the “knowledge of the defendant officer” framing).

Judge Oldham’s dissent, in turn, cites a wide array of Supreme Court and circuit qualified-immunity decisions (including City of Tahlequah v. Bond, Kisela v. Hughes, and City & Cnty. of San Francisco v. Sheehan) to argue that qualified immunity should attach absent a “squarely governing” case, and he invokes the Fifth Circuit’s “squarely governs” formulation via Laviage v. Fite. He also invokes Supreme Court admonitions about overly general statements of law, referencing Mullenix v. Luna and the Fifth Circuit’s earlier decision reversed in Luna v. Mullenix.

The majority’s answer to this broader debate is practical and procedural: before one can decide whether precedent “squarely governs,” a court must identify what happened; where the record permits materially different accounts on threat, perception, and the suspect’s movements, that identification is for a jury.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

Two-step qualified immunity framework: Following Crane v. City of Arlington, Tex. and Tolan v. Cotton, the court asks (1) whether there was a constitutional violation, and (2) whether the right was clearly established.
Objective reasonableness pivots on “immediate threat” for deadly force: While the pursuit and flight matter, the opinion stresses that in deadly-force cases the “threat-of-harm factor typically predominates,” per Crane.
Temporal segmentation of force (initial shot vs later shots): The key analytical move is separating the first shot (fired while Ramirez was near Watson) from the subsequent six shots fired as Ramirez ran away. Under Mason, Roque, and Lytle, justification can evaporate rapidly, requiring re-assessment “at the precise time” of the later shots.
Material fact disputes identified: The court flags two factual disputes as outcome-determinative: (a) whether Granado actually perceived Ramirez was armed, and (b) whether Ramirez made threatening gestures (e.g., “swinging” a handgun toward officers) while fleeing. The court treats Granado’s contemporaneous question—“did he have a gun?”—as evidence a jury could use to disbelieve Granado’s later claims. It also treats Watson’s statement (Ramirez never pointed the gun), body-camera limitations, and autopsy trajectories (back-to-front) as evidence supporting Plaintiff.
No summary judgment where narrative choice is required: The court’s bottom line is procedural-constitutional: selecting between competing accounts is forbidden at summary judgment (Anderson), and excessive-force disputes of this sort must go to a jury (Saucier; Cole).
Clearly established law under Plaintiff’s facts: If a jury accepts Plaintiff’s account—Granado did not know Ramirez was armed, Ramirez was fleeing with his back turned, and did not turn toward officers—then Tennessee v. Garner as applied through Lytle and Baker makes the illegality clear.

3.3 Impact

Reinforces “moment-of-force” analysis with shot-by-shot granularity: The decision underscores that officers cannot justify later rounds solely by referring to earlier danger; courts must examine whether the threat persisted when each volley was fired.
Elevates the evidentiary role of contemporaneous statements, video, and autopsy trajectories: The opinion shows how physical evidence (back-to-front wound paths) and real-time utterances (“did he have a gun?”) can create triable disputes even when an officer later provides a threat-based narrative.
Narrows overbroad reliance on “no need to wait” language: By distinguishing furtive-gesture/hidden-weapon cases, the opinion may limit efforts to generalize those precedents to scenarios where a suspect is fully visible, fleeing, and (on plaintiff’s view) not gesturing threateningly.
Practical litigation effect: In Fifth Circuit deadly-force cases, defendants seeking summary judgment on qualified immunity may face closer scrutiny when (i) the suspect is fleeing, (ii) subsequent shots strike the back, and (iii) the record contains credible competing accounts on the suspect’s pointing/turning or the officer’s perception.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Qualified immunity: A doctrine that protects government officials from damages liability unless they violated a constitutional right that was “clearly established” at the time. It is often resolved early, but not when key facts are genuinely disputed.
Summary judgment: A pretrial ruling granted only when no genuine dispute of material fact exists and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Courts must accept the nonmovant’s supported version of events for purposes of the motion.
Objective reasonableness (Fourth Amendment): The question is not whether the officer acted with good intentions, but whether a reasonable officer could think the force used was justified under the circumstances known/perceived at that moment.
“Immediate threat” in deadly force cases: The central inquiry is whether the suspect posed an imminent risk of serious harm at the time force was used; flight alone does not suffice under Tennessee v. Garner.
“Furtive gesture” cases: Decisions where deadly force is sometimes upheld because the suspect makes a sudden movement toward a place where a weapon could be hidden (waistband, console, floorboard), creating a reasonable fear the suspect is drawing a weapon—distinct from a fully visible fleeing suspect, on Plaintiff’s view here.

5. Conclusion

Ramirez v. Granado publishes a pointed Fifth Circuit reminder: when deadly force is used against a fleeing suspect, and the record supports competing accounts on whether the officer actually perceived a weapon and whether the suspect posed an immediate threat at the time of later shots, qualified immunity cannot be resolved on summary judgment. The court situates that holding in well-worn doctrine—Graham v. Connor’s objective reasonableness, Barnes v. Felix’s emphasis on the precise time of shooting, and Tennessee v. Garner’s ban on deadly force absent immediate threat—while operationalizing those principles through shot-by-shot analysis and rigorous adherence to the summary-judgment standard.