4. Analysis
4.1. Precedents Cited and Their Influence
A. The governing excessive-force framework
Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989). This decision supplies the objective-reasonableness framework for Fourth Amendment excessive-force claims. The court considered the severity of the crime, the existence of an immediate threat to officers or others, and active resistance or flight. These factors guide a totality-of-the-circumstances assessment rather than operate as isolated numerical tests. In this case, all three ultimately weighed against Avery’s use of deadly force.
Est. of Larsen ex rel. Sturdivan v. Murr, 511 F.3d 1255 (10th Cir. 2008). This precedent provides four considerations for evaluating immediate danger in deadly-force cases: commands to relinquish a weapon and compliance with them; hostile weapon movements; distance; and the person’s manifest intentions. Its importance here lies in distinguishing possession of a weapon from threatening use of that weapon. Noncompliance and proximity supported Avery to some degree, but the absence of hostile movements and manifested violent intent supported the estate.
Valverde, 967 F.3d at 1061. The opinion cites this authority for the overarching question whether the officer reasonably believed he faced a threat of serious physical harm. The supplied opinion identifies this case only by its shortened name. Its cited proposition confirms that the immediate-threat inquiry concerns objectively reasonable danger, not merely the presence of an object capable of causing injury.
B. The precedents establishing notice before the shooting
Tenorio v. Pitzer, 802 F.3d 1160 (10th Cir. 2015). This was the principal clearly established-law precedent relied on below. Officers confronted an intoxicated, potentially suicidal person holding a kitchen knife loosely at his side. He walked into a living room at an ordinary pace and was shot after approximately two-and-a-half steps. The Tenth Circuit found a constitutional violation, emphasizing the absence of hostile knife movements.
The analogy to Christopher was substantial: both individuals possessed potentially dangerous, nongun weapons, moved without charging, and could be found not to have threatened the officer with the weapon. The relevant similarity concerned the absence of an immediate threat, rather than the exact object held.
Zuchel v. City & County of Denver, 997 F.2d 730 (10th Cir. 1993). The court affirmed a jury verdict finding unreasonable force where an officer shot a person reportedly holding a knife who had taken three steps toward the officer but had not brandished the knife or threatened him. This precedent demonstrates that movement toward an officer does not automatically amount to an attack. It provided an early foundation for the rule later applied in Tenorio v. Pitzer.
Walker v. City of Orem, 451 F.3d 1139 (10th Cir. 2006). The court denied qualified immunity where an officer shot a person holding a knife to his own wrist who made no other threats. Relying on Zuchel v. City & County of Denver, it held that deadly force was clearly unreasonable where the officer had reason to believe the person held a knife rather than a gun, was not charging, and made no slicing or stabbing motions toward the officer.
Together, these three cases established the decisive distinction: a person’s capacity to inflict harm does not itself establish an immediate threat justifying deadly force. Avery’s proposed distinctions—suicidal behavior, when officers drew their firearms, and whether they announced their presence—did not materially alter that common principle.
Baca v. Cosper, 128 F.4th 1319 (10th Cir. 2025). An officer responding to a domestic disturbance shot an elderly woman with dementia who held two downward-pointing knives, moved them nonthreateningly, and took two steps toward him. The court treated Tenorio v. Pitzer, Zuchel v. City & County of Denver, and Walker v. City of Orem as compelling a finding of a clearly established violation.
The present opinion used Baca v. Cosper to confirm its reading of those earlier decisions, not as an independent source of notice to Avery. Both that decision and its underlying events postdated the July 2020 shooting. This temporal distinction is essential: later cases may explain an earlier rule, but cannot retroactively provide the notice qualified immunity requires.
C. Crime severity and resistance
Perea v. Baca, 817 F.3d 1198 (10th Cir. 2016). Officers performing a welfare check were not initially pursuing suspected criminal activity. The court therefore weighed crime severity heavily against more than minimal force; even a subsequent minor traffic offense supported only minimal force. This reasoning strongly supported the estate because Avery was conducting a civil standby and did not suspect Christopher of any crime.
Est. of Taylor v. Salt Lake City, 16 F.4th 744 (10th Cir. 2021). This case supported the conclusion that the resistance-or-flight factor weighs against force when there is no arrest the person could resist or evade. Avery was not attempting an arrest, Christopher was not fleeing, and Avery did not contest this factor on appeal.
Bond v. City of Tahlequah, 981 F.3d 808 (10th Cir. 2020), reversed on other grounds, 595 U.S. 9 (2021). Avery relied on this decision to argue that belligerent behavior could shift the crime-severity factor toward greater force even when the underlying offense was minor. The court rejected that reading. Threatening behavior ordinarily belongs under the immediate-threat factor, not crime severity. Moreover, Christopher initially twice agreed to put the bat down, undermining Avery’s characterization of the encounter’s beginning as aggressively defiant. The opinion expressly acknowledges the reversal on other grounds.
D. Limits on appellate fact review
Teetz ex rel. Lofton v. Stepien, 142 F.4th 705 (10th Cir. 2025), and Vette v. K-9 Deputy Sanders, 989 F.3d 1154 (10th Cir. 2021). These decisions establish the ordinary boundaries of interlocutory qualified-immunity review. The appellate court asks whether the facts a jury could find establish a legal violation and whether the right was clearly established. It generally lacks jurisdiction to reconsider the district court’s assessment of what the evidence reasonably supports. Teetz ex rel. Lofton v. Stepien also supports the summary-judgment framework and objective excessive-force inquiry.
Clerkley v. Holcomb, 121 F.4th 1359 (10th Cir. 2024), and Lewis v. Tripp, 604 F.3d 1221 (10th Cir. 2010). These authorities recognize an exception when the record blatantly contradicts the factual version the district court regarded as reasonably supportable. They allowed Avery to raise his video-based argument, but did not authorize ordinary reweighing of the footage.
Est. of Ward ex rel. Stamp v. Lucero, 178 F.4th 604 (10th Cir. 2026). This case emphasizes that blatant contradiction is exceptionally difficult to establish. The accepted account must amount to a “visible fiction.” Christopher’s single step did not make the district court’s distinction between stepping and charging fictional.
Burke v. Pitts, 157 F.4th 1326 (10th Cir. 2025), and Ellis v. Salt Lake City Corp., 147 F.4th 1206 (10th Cir. 2025). These decisions explain that evidence strongly supporting an officer’s position is insufficient to satisfy the blatant-contradiction exception. Burke v. Pitts also supports the court’s treatment of poorly developed legal-error arguments, de novo review of legal issues, and the central importance of immediate danger.
Manning v. City of Tulsa, 170 F.4th 1287 (10th Cir. 2026). This precedent illustrates the importance of video timing: imagery captured after a shot may not establish the person’s position before it. Avery pointed to the same second in which he fired all three shots, making it unclear whether apparent forward movement was voluntary or the result of falling. The case also supports both the rejection of exact factual matching and the use of later decisions to explain the proper specificity of earlier law.
Simpson v. Little, 16 F.4th 1353 (10th Cir. 2021). This case recognizes that appellate review may extend to legal errors made on the way to factual determinations. Avery invoked that exception unsuccessfully: the district court had stated and applied the correct objective-reasonableness standards.
Love v. Grashorn, 134 F.4th 1109 (10th Cir. 2025). This authority identifies immediate danger as ordinarily a factual issue. It therefore required the appellate court to respect the district court’s determination that a jury could reject the existence of an immediate threat.
E. Qualified immunity and the specificity of established law
Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. 650 (2014). This decision supports the two-part qualified-immunity inquiry and the requirement to assess the facts favorably to the injured party at summary judgment. An officer’s preferred account cannot replace a reasonably supported plaintiff-favorable account.
Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001). The opinion invokes its formulation that a right is clearly established when a reasonable officer would understand that the conduct was unlawful in the circumstances confronted.
Packard v. Budaj, 86 F.4th 859 (10th Cir. 2023). This case supplies the principle that establishing notice does not require a “scavenger hunt” for a prior case with precisely identical facts. That principle permitted application of knife precedents to a bat encounter.
Zorn v. Linton, 607 U.S. 568 (2026), and District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48 (2018). These authorities require a high degree of specificity: precedent must make the particular rule apparent to every reasonable official. The court did not rely merely on an abstract right against excessive force. It identified materially similar cases involving nongun weapons, no charging, and no hostile weapon movements. The later decision supplied the governing formulation for the court’s analysis, while pre-2020 precedents supplied notice of the underlying prohibition.
Allen v. Muskogee, 119 F.3d 837 (10th Cir. 1997). This case concerns officers’ reckless conduct precipitating the need for deadly force. The court cited it to distinguish, rather than adopt, that theory. Avery’s argument about how officers should approach suicidal individuals implicated reckless creation of danger, but the decision rested on the lack of an immediate threat under the accepted facts.
4.2. Legal Reasoning
The video did not erase the factual dispute
The court distinguished what the footage showed from the characterization Avery sought to impose on it. Holding a bat and taking a step were compatible with the district court’s finding that Christopher was not charging or acting threateningly. Evidence supporting an officer’s interpretation does not necessarily make the opposing interpretation unreasonable.
The timing problem strengthened that conclusion. Movement visible at the moment of gunfire could reflect Christopher’s collapse rather than an advance preceding the shooting. The appellate court therefore declined to treat the footage as conclusively establishing an attack.
The three Graham factors favored the estate
Crime severity: Avery was performing a civil standby, and no crime was at issue. Reports about Christopher’s drinking, temperament, pending charges, and prior threat provided context, but did not transform the assignment into an investigation of a crime Christopher was then committing.
Resistance or flight: Avery was not attempting an arrest, and Christopher was not fleeing. Refusing to surrender the bat was relevant to danger, but it did not establish resistance to an arrest that was not occurring.
Immediate threat: This was the decisive factor. The district court acknowledged the facts favoring Avery: repeated noncompliance, a confined setting, and separation of only a few feet. Nevertheless, a jury could find that Christopher’s movements and intentions did not indicate an impending attack.
The court’s reasoning does not make proximity or noncompliance irrelevant. It holds that they were not conclusive where the remaining circumstances supported a finding of no immediate danger. Nor did the absence of a crime independently forbid all force; it was one part of the overall assessment.
Manifest intentions need not be analyzed under a repeated label
Avery argued that the district court failed to consider Christopher’s “manifest intentions.” The appellate court rejected the argument because the district court had examined conduct bearing directly on intent: Christopher did not charge, swing the bat, or engage in other threatening behavior.
The substantive inquiry mattered more than reciting the factor’s precise wording. Christopher’s angry language did not require the court to disregard the permissible finding that his physical conduct manifested no imminent violent intention.
Specificity does not require an identical weapon
The clearly established-law analysis focused on the circumstances relevant to danger. The difference between a knife and a baseball bat did not defeat notice because the earlier cases addressed armed individuals who were not charging and were not threatening officers with their weapons.
Likewise, differences in suicidal behavior, announcements of police presence, and the timing of drawing firearms did not overcome that material similarity. The brief duration of the encounters also supported comparison rather than meaningful distinction.
The rule remains limited. The opinion does not hold that everyone carrying a bat is nonthreatening, that a knife can never justify deadly force, or that officers must wait to be struck. Its conclusion depends on facts permitting a finding that no immediate threat of serious physical harm existed.
4.3. Potential Impact
- Extension of established precedent to another weapon. The decision confirms that knife cases can establish constitutional limits in a materially similar baseball-bat encounter. Object-specific differences matter when they change the threat, not merely because the objects have different names.
- Closer examination of video evidence. Courts must distinguish an observable movement from an inference that it constituted an attack, particularly when the footage captures movement during or after gunfire.
- Reinforcement of limited interlocutory review. Officers cannot routinely obtain a fresh factual assessment by describing their disagreement as blatant contradiction or legal error.
- Attention to noncriminal police encounters. Civil standbys and welfare-related calls require careful consideration of the absence of criminal suspicion and arrest resistance, while still allowing assessment of genuine safety threats.
- Guidance for training and litigation. Possession, proximity, verbal hostility, and noncompliance should be assessed together with weapon movement, approach, and apparent intent. The decision does not prescribe a particular tactical alternative.
The opinion establishes no municipal liability and endorses no separate failure-to-train theory. Its precedential significance concerns Avery’s individual qualified-immunity defense and the constitutional analysis of deadly force.