Reasonable Force Without an Arrest Announcement During a Shots-Fired Investigation

A. Legal Reasoning

1. Video evidence and the summary-judgment framework

The court began with what it described as a settled evidentiary hierarchy. Available recordings supplied the primary account of events where they clearly depicted what occurred. Gaps and genuine factual disputes were resolved in Collazo’s favor.

This approach mattered because several disputes concerned the meaning of observable conduct rather than whether the conduct happened. Collazo acknowledged holding the railing but disputed that she intended resistance. The court accepted her explanation for purposes of analysis while asking whether a reasonable officer, unaware of that explanation, could perceive resistance.

The decision therefore did not require a finding that Collazo subjectively intended to obstruct the officers. It rested on the objective significance of her conduct in the circumstances confronting them.

2. Qualified immunity: two independent questions

Qualified immunity required Collazo to establish both a constitutional violation and a right that was clearly established when the incident occurred. The court addressed both questions and concluded that neither supported liability.

These inquiries must remain distinct. A court may find conduct constitutional. Alternatively, it may conclude that liability is unavailable because existing law did not clearly prohibit the conduct, without definitively resolving constitutionality. Here, the panel expressly found the force reasonable and supplied the absence of clearly established law as an additional ground.

3. Force does not depend exclusively on a formal arrest

Collazo argued that the officers could not use any force before telling her she was under arrest. The court rejected that categorical position.

The constitutional authority to conduct an investigatory stop can include authority to use proportionate physical coercion. Likewise, appropriate detention during a lawful search or dangerous emergency may permit reasonable restraint even when the detained person has not been arrested.

The panel identified two objective justifications for initially detaining Collazo: reasonable suspicion arising from the shots-fired report and associated male-and-female argument, and the need to secure an unresolved emergency scene where a firearm had not been located.

LaGrandeur’s stated intention to arrest her for obstruction did not prevent consideration of these other objective grounds. The relevant question was what a reasonable officer could lawfully do under the known circumstances, not the officer’s private characterization of the encounter.

The limitation is important: the opinion does not authorize force simply because an officer prefers cooperation. A lawful basis for the seizure and a proportionate level of force remain necessary. Nor does the decision make an arrest announcement irrelevant; it rejects only the proposition that its absence is automatically dispositive.

4. The first Graham factor: seriousness viewed within the emergency

Under Graham v. Connor, courts consider the severity of the crime, the immediate safety threat, and resistance or attempted flight. The panel evaluated the first factor against the broader emergency rather than examining obstruction in isolation.

Officers had received reports consistent with potentially serious violence. Gunshots had occurred; a man and woman had been heard arguing; the firearm and male participant were unaccounted for; and some responding officers knew of previous domestic violence at the residence. LaGrandeur also observed apparently recent buckshot damage.

Against that background, the court viewed Collazo’s conduct as interfering with an urgent safety assessment, not merely interrupting a routine investigation. Michigan’s classification of obstruction and resisting under Mich. Comp. Laws § 750.81d(1) as a felony was relevant but not the sole basis of the court’s analysis.

The resulting principle is contextual: conduct that would justify little force during an ordinary encounter may warrant a different response when it materially complicates an unresolved emergency. The opinion does not establish that every obstruction allegation is inherently severe.

5. The second Graham factor: unresolved danger and scene security

The court also found a sufficient safety concern. At the time force began, officers did not know who had fired the shots, where the gun was, or whether anyone needed immediate assistance. Collazo remained near an entrance to the house and could potentially retreat inside.

The panel considered both the possibility that she posed a direct threat and the possibility that her conduct would distract officers from another armed person on the premises. It distinguished cases involving disruptive but visibly submissive individuals during non-emergency encounters.

This reasoning depends on the concrete emergency indicators. Hostility or argument alone was not treated as universally sufficient to establish danger. Equally, the later discovery that no one appeared injured could not retroactively eliminate the uncertainty officers reasonably faced earlier.

6. The third Graham factor: observable resistance and proportionality

The panel distinguished passive resistance from active physical resistance. Initially, Collazo’s verbal opposition and noncooperation were characterized as passive. Grabbing her wrist and attempting to guide her from the deck were considered modest responses in the emergency context.

Once she held the railing and prevented movement, a reasonable officer could perceive a physical struggle. Even then, LaGrandeur did not employ a taser, baton, strike, or takedown. He pulled her arm until she released the railing.

The opinion’s reasoning is not that a particular technique is always lawful. Rather, the comparatively limited force corresponded to the resistance reasonably perceived and the danger confronting the officers.

Collazo’s undisclosed purpose—protecting her injured knee—did not alter what officers could reasonably understand at that moment. Once she disclosed the injury, the officers’ subsequent conduct remained relevant: they helped her after her falls, escorted her at a normal pace, and used no gratuitous force after restraint.

7. Each officer’s conduct required separate assessment

The court assessed LaGrandeur and Wehner individually rather than treating the officers as a single unit. Wehner arrived at the physical struggle after Collazo had held the railing and used less force than LaGrandeur. His grabbing, assistance with movement, and handcuffing were therefore independently reasonable.

Wright and Burleson faced a different theory: failure to intervene. That claim failed because there was no underlying excessive force to prevent. The court consequently had no need to decide whether either trooper had sufficient time or opportunity to intervene.

8. Clearly established law required a close factual fit

The panel rejected reliance on a general right to be free from excessive force. Existing authority had to give sufficiently clear notice that the particular conduct was unlawful.

Collazo’s authorities differed in three recurring ways: they involved more severe force, less resistance, or non-emergency circumstances. Cases condemning repeated taser use against a passive person did not necessarily prohibit wrist-grabbing and pulling during an unresolved shots-fired response.

The court also rejected unpublished decisions as sufficient, by themselves, to supply the binding authority demanded by its clearly-established-law analysis.

A temporal qualification: the encounter occurred on August 1, 2021. Numerous decisions discussed in the opinion were issued afterward. Those later decisions can explain current doctrine and assist the court’s merits analysis, but cannot themselves have given officers notice in 2021. The clearly-established inquiry must ultimately rest on law existing when the conduct occurred.

9. Issue preclusion, rather than a fresh probable-cause determination

The false-arrest claim followed a separate analytical path. Such a claim requires an absence of probable cause. The panel held that Collazo could not relitigate that issue because the Michigan preliminary-hearing court had already resolved it.

Applying Michigan law, the court identified three requirements: a valid, final merits determination; actual litigation of the same issue where that issue was essential to the determination; and a full and fair opportunity to litigate.

Collazo contested only whether the issue was genuinely the same. She argued that LaGrandeur’s false statements and omissions had tainted the earlier decision. Material evidence fabrication can prevent preclusion because deciding probable cause on a distorted record is not necessarily equivalent to deciding whether an officer wrongfully created that record.

But a bare accusation of falsification was insufficient. The recordings substantiated the substance of LaGrandeur’s account: Collazo repeatedly demanded departure, remained argumentative, received explanations that officers were investigating, and held the railing during the attempted detention.

The court distinguished imperfect recollection or imprecise description from intentional deception. It also concluded that the disputed statements were not material to the outcome because the state judge had viewed the recordings and heard Collazo’s account.

Thus, the panel did not independently reconsider probable cause from the beginning. It enforced the earlier determination against the particular challenge Collazo preserved.

10. The unresolved effect of an inability to appeal

The opinion expressly acknowledged tension in circuit decisions concerning whether a person whose criminal case ends favorably has had a full and fair opportunity to litigate a preliminary probable-cause ruling when that ruling cannot be appealed.

Collazo did not preserve that argument in either the district court or the appeal. The panel therefore treated it as forfeited.

This reservation limits the decision’s reach. It should not be read as conclusively holding that every preliminary-hearing probable-cause finding remains preclusive after dismissal or acquittal. The court left that broader question unresolved.

11. Municipal liability required an underlying constitutional wrong

The county claim alleged inadequate training and supervision. The panel rejected it because Collazo had not established the underlying constitutional violation necessary for municipal liability.

This conclusion must not be confused with extending the officers’ qualified immunity to the county. Municipalities do not receive that personal immunity. A municipal claim may sometimes require separate consideration when an officer prevails solely because the law was not clearly established. Here, however, the court found the force constitutional and treated the unlawful-arrest challenge as foreclosed.

B. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

The opinion draws on a substantial body of Fourth Amendment and preclusion authority. The following discussion groups those decisions by their function in the court’s reasoning.

1. Record review and summary judgment

• Feagin v. Mansfield Police Dep't, Moore v. Oakland County, and Scott v. Harris support beginning with reliable video evidence and resolving remaining genuine disputes favorably to the nonmoving plaintiff. They explain why an account contradicted by clear footage need not control, while disputed facts outside the footage remain protected by ordinary summary-judgment rules.
• Lawler ex rel. Lawler v. Hardeman County supplies the de novo review standard. Brown v. Chapman explains that, after the proper factual assumptions are fixed, excessive-force reasonableness becomes a legal question.
• Ramsey v. Rivard and Gardenhire v. Schubert identify the critical limitation: summary judgment is inappropriate where immunity turns on a genuine factual dispute. Here, the court concluded that Collazo’s asserted protective motive and undisclosed injury did not create such a dispute.

2. Qualified immunity and factual specificity

• Ashcroft v. al-Kidd provides the two-part qualified-immunity framework and warns against defining rights at excessive generality. Pearson v. Callahan permits either prong to be considered first.
• Anderson v. Creighton requires sufficiently clear contours of the asserted right. Bell v. City of Southfield emphasizes binding, on-point authority and explains the limitations of unpublished decisions as a source of clearly established law.
• Lee v. Russ supports the requirement of a precedent that squarely governs the situation. Lyons v. City of Xenia reinforces both contextual assessment of physical force and the need for materially similar authority.

3. Objective reasonableness and the full factual context

• Graham v. Connor is the principal authority. It supplies objective reasonableness, the three familiar factors, the prohibition on hindsight, and recognition that lawful seizures may require physical coercion.
• Gambrel v. Knox County reinforces that lawful detention or arrest permits some force. LaPlante v. City of Battle Creek explains that the Graham factors are not exhaustive; Eastep v. City of Nashville confirms that reasonableness does not require every factor to favor officers.
• Roell v. Hamilton County frames the ultimate inquiry as whether the seizure and its execution were justified under the total circumstances.
• Barnes v. Felix supports examining relevant context beyond the immediate instant force was applied, including the known history of the interaction. Its reference to an inquiry with “no time limit” does not authorize reliance on unknown facts or later discoveries.
• Reich v. City of Elizabethtown and White v. Pauly restrict the assessment to facts knowable to the officers at the time. Brown v. Giles makes the officer’s subjective detention purpose irrelevant to the objective justification analysis.
• Binay v. Bettendorf requires individual assessment of each defendant’s conduct, explaining the separate treatment of LaGrandeur, Wehner, and the alleged nonintervening officers.

4. Arrest announcements and non-arrest detention

• Saalim v. Walmart, Inc. involved repeated taser use against an unresisting person during a routine traffic stop. The court explained that failure to announce an arrest increased the likelihood of finding excessive force there, but did not create an absolute prerequisite for all force.
• Grawey v. Drury likewise supported a totality-of-the-circumstances assessment, not the categorical announcement rule Collazo proposed.
• Dorsey v. Barber and Radvansky v. City of Olmsted Falls recognize that investigatory detention can, when justified, include handcuffs or drawn weapons. Their importance is conceptual: physical restraint does not invariably require a formal arrest.
• Bletz v. Gribble supports necessary scene-security detention during a valid search, including detention of an innocent person without individualized suspicion in appropriate circumstances. United States v. Coleman is cited as additional support for the scene-security discussion.
• Michigan v. Summers establishes detention authority associated with a residential search. Muehler v. Mena addresses reasonable force, including handcuffing, during dangerous search-related detention. Thornton v. Fray provides additional support for reasonable restraint in that setting.

These search-related authorities supply an analogy, not an unrestricted emergency-detention power. Their relevance depends on a lawful governmental activity and a genuine security justification.

5. Seriousness, emergency interference, and danger

• Shumate v. City of Adrian is an important contrasting authority. It rejected substantial force during a non-emergency vehicle-impoundment dispute. The present panel relied on Shumate’s contextual framework while distinguishing its absence of an ongoing emergency or suspected underlying crime.
• Ames v. King County supports avoiding an artificially narrow view of conduct that interferes with an emergency response. As an out-of-circuit decision, it contributes persuasive reasoning rather than binding Sixth Circuit law.
• Jackson-Gibson v. Beasley, Reed v. Campbell County, and Ward v. Brotzke inform the seriousness assessment. The panel acknowledged that obstructive or disorderly conduct is not invariably severe, while considering violence, felony involvement, and public-safety needs.
• Franke v. Janes supports treating a shots-fired report as indicating potentially grave criminal conduct. Kapuscinski v. City of Gibraltar supplies a contextual comparison concerning relevant prior encounters.
• Dunigan v. Noble is a close supporting analogy: it upheld force used against a person whose presence complicated an emergency response. The opinion also invoked its approval of a push that caused stumbling on stairs to contrast with the more limited conduct here.
• Walters v. Stafford directly supports the significance of recently fired shots and an unlocated firearm, as well as the reasonableness of pulling in that emergency setting.
• Lustig v. Mondeau illustrates why disruptiveness alone may not establish a threat in a non-emergency. Kent v. Oakland County involved taser use against an unarmed, submissive individual during a non-emergency response. The unresolved shooting risk and different physical conduct distinguished both authorities.

6. Resistance, force levels, and injury

• Wright v. City of Euclid supports distinguishing passive from active resistance. Jackson v. Washtenaw County informs the treatment of verbal opposition and passive noncompliance.
• Slusher v. Carson and Robinson v. City of Knoxville support the use of grabbing and pulling in appropriate circumstances. Moore v. Oakland County contributes the distinction between physical struggle and noncompliance, and the characterization of a wrist grab as a modest measure.
• Smith v. City of Troy limits severe force against passive resistance. Hagans v. Franklin Cnty. Sheriff's Off. recognizes that active physical resistance may justify stronger measures, depending on the circumstances. The panel emphasized that the officers here did not employ those stronger measures.
• Chaney-Snell v. Young prohibits gratuitous force against a surrendered, nonthreatening person. The absence of additional force after handcuffing supported the officers.
• Rodriguez v. Farrell supports declining to impose liability for aggravating a pre-existing injury unknown to the officer. Neague v. Cynkar supports the reasonableness of handcuffing under the circumstances considered.

7. Authorities distinguished on clearly established law

Beyond the contrasts already discussed, the panel examined several decisions involving substantially different force:

• Goodwin v. City of Painesville involved taser use; Harris v. City of Circleville involved a takedown and body strikes.
• King v. City of Rockford involved a takedown and kneeling on a suspect’s back.
• Solomon v. Auburn Hills Police Dep't. involved a leg sweep, throwing the suspect against a wall, and forcibly bending an arm.

Together with the other excessive-force decisions Collazo cited, these cases did not, in the panel’s assessment, clearly prohibit the materially different combination of limited force, perceived physical resistance, and an unresolved shooting emergency.

8. Failure to intervene

Turner v. Scott identifies excessive force as a necessary component of this theory. Hunt v. Sunquist states the direct consequence: without excessive force, there is no liability for failing to intervene against it. These authorities made the claims against Wright and Burleson derivative of the unsuccessful excessive-force claims.

9. False arrest and Michigan issue preclusion

• Alford v. Deffendoll and Sykes v. Anderson establish that a false-arrest plaintiff must prove the absence of probable cause.
• Davis v. Gallagher requires application of Michigan preclusion law to the Michigan determination and recognizes that supported allegations of evidence falsification may change the issue being litigated.
• Monat v. State Farm Ins. Co. supplies Michigan’s defensive issue-preclusion requirements. United States v. Dominguez supports that framework, while People v. Trakhtenberg explains its operation across criminal and civil proceedings.
• Donovan v. Thames, Autrey v. Stair, and Flowers v. City of Detroit illustrate preclusion of probable-cause relitigation in later civil-rights actions. Autrey also requires more than bare allegations of police falsification; Flowers distinguishes an imperfect witness from a false one.
• Darrah v. City of Oak Park explains why intentional evidence falsification can require merits review rather than preclusion: the alleged wrongdoing may present an issue different from ordinary probable cause.
• United States v. Dunnigan supports distinguishing faulty memory from intentional perjury. That distinction undermined Collazo’s reliance on LaGrandeur’s failure to recall his threat of jail.

10. Preserved questions and municipal liability

• Peet v. City of Detroit and Autrey v. Stair, considered alongside Davis v. Gallagher, expose the unresolved tension over preclusion after a favorable criminal outcome and an inability to appeal. The panel acknowledged but did not resolve that tension.
• Radvansky v. City of Olmsted Falls and City of Columbus v. Hotels.com, L.P. support treating the unraised full-and-fair-opportunity argument as forfeited.
• Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. provides the framework for municipal responsibility for constitutional wrongs. Robertson v. Lucas supplies the decisive limitation applied here: no Monell liability without an underlying constitutional violation.

C. Potential Impact and Limits

Emergency-response litigation

The opinion gives defendants a fact-specific framework for defending limited restraint during a shots-fired response. Documented emergency information, an unlocated weapon, uncertainty about injured persons, and observable physical resistance can collectively support reasonable force.

For plaintiffs, it highlights the importance of identifying what officers actually knew, when they knew it, whether danger remained unresolved, and whether force continued after the safety justification ended.

No automatic rule based on labels

Neither calling an encounter an “emergency” nor describing conduct as “resistance” resolves the constitutional question. The justification must be supported by the record, and the force must remain proportionate. Similarly, the decision does not independently resolve a First Amendment claim or establish a universal obligation to remain silent, answer questions, or welcome police onto private property.

Physical limitations and communication

The decision shows why disclosure timing matters. An undisclosed injury ordinarily cannot shape an officer’s earlier assessment. A communicated or apparent limitation, however, becomes part of the circumstances relevant to subsequent force. The opinion therefore does not authorize officers to disregard known medical needs.

Criminal proceedings can shape later civil litigation

The preliminary hearing proved consequential even though the prosecution ended without a conviction. Civil-rights litigants must address each preclusion requirement, preserve challenges to the opportunity for review, and support allegations of fabrication with evidence and materiality.

The unresolved appealability question remains especially important. Future litigants who properly preserve it may obtain consideration that Collazo’s forfeiture prevented.

Persuasive rather than binding significance

Because the opinion is unpublished, its strongest contribution is its organized application of existing principles to a particular emergency response. It should not be elevated into a categorical rule authorizing force against verbally oppositional residents.