“Touching the Vehicle Touches the Person”: The Eleventh Circuit Holds That Shooting and Striking a Car Seizes Its Driver, and Treats Gunfire-Initiated Stops as Arrests

Introduction

In a published opinion authored by Judge Rosenbaum, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the denial of qualified immunity to two Henry County, Georgia police officers who, at night and without identifying themselves, approached a lone woman in a business cul-de-sac, ordered her to stop, and fired four rounds into her vehicle as she drove up a dark driveway to leave. The decision, issued in Tammy Watkins v. Officer Lawrence Davis (and Officer Joshua Faulkner), crystallizes several important Fourth Amendment principles and breaks new doctrinal ground in this Circuit.

Most notably, the Court holds that when officers intentionally shoot and strike a moving vehicle in order to stop its driver, they effect a seizure of the driver by physical force under the Fourth Amendment—even if no bullet hits the driver’s body. Drawing on the Supreme Court’s decision in Torres v. Madrid and centuries-old common law treating contact with a rider’s horse or carriage as contact with the rider, the Court coins a workable rule for modern policing: touching the vehicle the person is driving is, for seizure-by-force purposes, touching the person.

The Court also recognizes an unusual show-of-authority seizure where the plaintiff immediately submitted once she reasonably realized she was dealing with police—after officers failed to identify themselves. And it treats an encounter initiated with gunfire as an arrest requiring probable cause, not merely a Terry stop justified by reasonable suspicion. Because, under the plaintiff-favorable version of the facts, the officers had neither arguable reasonable suspicion nor arguable probable cause, the panel allows the plaintiff’s unlawful seizure, excessive force, and property seizure claims to proceed.

Summary of the Opinion

• Seizure by physical force: Officers seized Watkins when they intentionally shot and struck her vehicle to restrain her. Under Torres v. Madrid, force may be applied indirectly, and common-law analogies confirm that contacting a vehicle being driven by a person is contact with the person.
• Seizure by show of authority: Their gunfire and commands were an obvious show of authority. Although Watkins did not stop inside the cul-de-sac, she immediately submitted upon seeing police cruisers (her first reasonable opportunity to recognize police authority given the officers’ failure to identify themselves). On this extraordinary record, that submission completed a show-of-authority seizure.
• Unlawful detention as arrest (not a mere stop): An encounter initiated by police gunfire is not a Terry stop; it is an arrest, which requires probable cause. The officers lacked arguable reasonable suspicion, much less probable cause, to stop or arrest Watkins.
• Excessive force: Under Tennessee v. Garner and Eleventh Circuit precedent, officers may not use deadly force on an unarmed, non-dangerous suspect who poses no immediate threat. Viewing the facts for Watkins, no reasonable officer could believe she used (or attempted to use) her vehicle as a weapon. Qualified immunity is denied.
• Seizure of property: Officers seized Watkins’s SUV when they separated her from it; no exigent circumstances justified a warrantless seizure. The law forbidding such seizures without an exception was clearly established to a point of “obvious clarity.”
• Qualified immunity denied: On all three § 1983 claims—unlawful seizure of person, excessive force, and unlawful seizure of property—the officers are not entitled to qualified immunity.

Factual and Procedural Background

Police responded at night to a 911 call about two flashlight-carrying suspects breaking into a black truck near a yellow drilling rig at 11 Bellamy Place, a commercial cul-de-sac. Officers Davis and Faulkner parked up the road, approached in darkness without lights or sirens, and wore dark clothing. They later noticed a “hatchback” across the cul-de-sac at 30 Bellamy Place (Watkins’s workplace). Watkins, a 47-year-old assistant manager, had loaded medical oxygen equipment into her vehicle for a COVID patient. She sat in her car looking at her phone for directions.

As she began to drive up the unlit driveway to exit, officers silently advanced downhill toward her. One officer’s flashlight was mounted to his drawn firearm; neither officer initially identified as police. When the car moved toward the only egress, officers yelled “Freeze!” and opened fire at the front of the SUV. The car continued up the driveway in a straight line, exited into the road, and—within seconds—stopped upon encountering marked police vehicles. Officers then handcuffed Watkins and kept her in a patrol car for three to four hours before releasing her without charges. Her car, struck by four rounds, was later declared a total loss.

Watkins filed § 1983 claims for unlawful seizure of her person and unlawful detention, excessive force, and unlawful seizure of property. The district court denied qualified immunity on the federal claims and granted official immunity on state claims. Officers appealed.

Key Holdings and New Rules

• New Eleventh Circuit rule on seizure-by-force: Intentionally shooting and striking a moving vehicle in order to restrain its driver is a Fourth Amendment seizure of the person by physical force (Torres extended; common-law horse/carriage analogies adopted).
• Show-of-authority submission clarified: Where officers fail to identify themselves and a suspect reasonably does not realize she is dealing with police, her immediate stop upon first recognizing police authority can complete a show-of-authority seizure attributable to the officers’ earlier gunfire.
• Gunfire transforms a stop into an arrest: An encounter initiated by police discharging firearms is treated as an arrest requiring probable cause; deadly force cannot be justified by mere reasonable suspicion.
• Officers cannot manufacture “danger” by stepping into a vehicle’s path: An officer’s choice to step into oncoming traffic cannot transmute a non-threatening driver into an assailant.
• Warrantless vehicle seizure (separation of owner from vehicle) requires an exception: Absent exigency or other exception, separating a person from her vehicle is a seizure of property; this was clearly established.

Analysis

Precedents and Authorities Driving the Decision

• Torres v. Madrid, 592 U.S. 306 (2021): The Court relied heavily on Torres’s rule that a seizure by physical force occurs when officers apply force with intent to restrain—even if the person does not submit—and that the force can be indirect (e.g., a bullet). Importantly, Torres endorsed looking to the common law of arrest and battery to define “touching.” The Eleventh Circuit extends this logic to conclude that bullets that strike a car “touch” the person driving it, akin to touching a rider’s horse or carriage.
• Common-law lineage (Countess of Rutland’s Case; Blackstone; horse/carriage cases): The opinion canvasses 17th–19th century authorities treating strikes to a horse or carriage as batteries upon the rider. The Court reasons that in modern terms, a car is the functional successor to horse and carriage; contact with it is contact with the driver for seizure-by-force purposes.
• California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621 (1991); Brower v. County of Inyo, 489 U.S. 593 (1989); United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U.S. 544 (1980): These cases frame seizure by show of authority and the requirement of submission. The panel holds that, on these unusual facts, submission occurred when Watkins first reasonably recognized police authority, and that she was “stopped by the very instrumentality” the officers set in motion—gunfire.
• Barnes v. Felix, 145 S. Ct. 1353 (2025): The Supreme Court’s instruction not to “put on chronological blinders”—i.e., to assess reasonableness in light of the full history of the interaction—features prominently. The Eleventh Circuit uses Barnes to consider how officers’ stealth and failure to identify themselves shaped everything that followed.
• Reasonable suspicion / arguable reasonable suspicion: Illinois v. Wardlow, Kansas v. Glover, Wong Sun v. United States, Jackson v. Sauls, and Eleventh Circuit cases like Franklin and Lindsey inform when flight can contribute to reasonable suspicion. Critically, flight from unidentified pursuers is “ambiguous” and cannot be used to justify a stop, especially when officers themselves provoke the flight by failing to identify themselves.
• Excessive force framework: Tennessee v. Garner; Scott v. Harris; Vaughan v. Cox; Morton v. Kirkwood; McCullough v. Antolini; Robinson v. Arrugueta; Pace v. Capobianco; Singletary v. Vargas; Terrell v. Smith; Baxter v. Santiago-Miranda. The opinion situates Watkins in the line of cases disallowing deadly force where the driver did not use or threaten to use a vehicle as a weapon and no one faced an immediate risk of serious harm.
• Self-created peril: The Court cites out-of-circuit authority (Kirby v. Duva; Estate of Starks v. Enyart) for the proposition that an officer cannot step into a vehicle’s path and then rely on the danger he created to justify deadly force.
• Property seizure: Soldal v. Cook County; United States v. Jacobsen; Crocker v. Beatty. These cases establish that separating a person from her vehicle is a seizure of property, and that warrantless seizures are per se unreasonable absent an exception (e.g., exigent circumstances).
• Qualified immunity standards: Alcocer v. Mills; Jackson v. Sauls; Gervin v. Florence; Glasscox v. City of Argo; Gilmore v. Ga. Dep’t of Corr. The Court reiterates the three paths to “clearly established” law and the “arguable” reasonableness inquiry.
• Pre-Torres vehicle-shooting cases distinguished: Troupe (11th Cir.), Bella (10th Cir.), Cole (8th Cir.), Adams (6th Cir.) are either pre-Torres or factually distinct; the panel expressly embraces the Torres analysis and aligns with the Fifth Circuit’s Flores v. City of Palacios.

Legal Reasoning

1) Seizure of the Person: Two independent paths

Physical force. Officers intentionally fired at—and struck—Watkins’s car to restrain her movement. Under Torres, “force” for seizure purposes includes an indirect touch via a bullet; the common law treated striking a horse or carriage as striking the rider. The panel reasons there is “no material difference” between those scenarios and a bullet that hits a car being driven by a person. Because the shots evidenced an objective intent to restrain, a seizure by physical force occurred even though no bullet hit Watkins’s body.

Show of authority. The officers’ gunfire and shouted commands were a classic show of authority. Although Watkins did not stop inside the driveway, the record showed she did not realize the men in dark clothing were police; when she saw marked patrol vehicles mere seconds later, she immediately stopped and submitted. Given that the officers never identified themselves and acted under cover of darkness, the panel treats her immediate stop upon first recognizing police as submission to the earlier show of authority. The gunfire was the “instrumentality” that caused her to submit; this extraordinary fact pattern supports a show-of-authority seizure.

2) Unlawful Detention: This was an arrest, not a Terry stop

Applying Terry and the Eleventh Circuit’s four-factor test (purpose, diligence, scope/intrusiveness, duration), the Court concludes that an encounter initiated by gunfire is not an “investigatory stop.” Deadly force is the most intrusive form of seizure and, under Garner, requires at least probable cause that a suspect poses an immediate threat of serious harm. Because the officers fired at the outset, this “stop” matured into an arrest ab initio and had to be supported by probable cause—not just reasonable suspicion. On the plaintiff-friendly view of the facts, the officers had neither.

Even if analyzed as a Terry stop, the record defeats qualified immunity: there was no arguable reasonable suspicion. Officers were dispatched to a different address (11 Bellamy Place) and a different vehicle (a black truck) than where and what they encountered (Watkins at 30 Bellamy Place with a hatchback). Watkins did nothing suspicious; she was engaged in work tasks. Most critically, her “flight” is legally ambiguous when officers fail to identify themselves. Flight provoked by unidentified, stealthy officers cannot create reasonable suspicion. And any claim that she attempted vehicular assault fails on this record: there is a genuine dispute whether Officer Davis was ever in the vehicle’s path; he stepped into the center of the only egress; the vehicle tracked straight; and another officer (Harris) perceived no intent to strike anyone.

3) Excessive Force: No immediate threat; deadly force unjustified

Under Garner and Eleventh Circuit precedent, deadly force is permissible only if the suspect poses an immediate threat of serious harm. Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Watkins, she was unarmed, non-dangerous, and driving in a straight line to exit the premises; officers had not identified themselves; there was no erratic driving; and no life was in jeopardy. The Court rejects the officers’ reliance on vehicle-as-weapon cases, distinguishing them because those suspects disregarded commands from clearly identified officers or engaged in menacing maneuvers. Here, no reasonable officer could believe Watkins was weaponizing her vehicle, so firing four rounds violated clearly established law.

The panel further notes that officers may not manufacture danger by stepping into a vehicle’s path and then use that danger to justify deadly force. Citing Kirby and Starks, it rejects any attempt to convert the officer’s tactical choice into a predicate for force.

4) Seizure of Property: Separating the owner from her vehicle is a seizure; no exception applied

The officers seized Watkins’s SUV when they separated her from it and took control of the scene. Warrantless seizures of personal property are presumptively unreasonable absent an exception (e.g., exigency). Because there was no emergency to protect life under the plaintiff-favorable facts, the exigent-circumstances exception did not apply. The right to be free from such warrantless seizures absent an exception was “clearly established to the point of obvious clarity,” defeating qualified immunity on the property claim.

5) Qualified Immunity: Clearly established law in multiple ways

• General principles with obvious clarity: Garner’s bar on deadly force against non-dangerous suspects; the per se unlawfulness of warrantless property seizures without exception.
• Vehicle-specific precedent: Morton and Vaughan establish that absent use or threatened use of a car as a weapon or an immediate risk of serious harm, deadly force is unconstitutional.
• Post-Torres framework: The seizure-by-force analysis follows Torres; the show-of-authority analysis follows Hodari D. and Brower; the totality analysis reflects Barnes.

Impact and Practical Consequences

Immediate doctrinal effects in the Eleventh Circuit

• Seizure-by-force now reaches bullets that strike vehicles: Officers who shoot and hit a vehicle with intent to stop the driver have seized the driver by physical force. This will affect both civil § 1983 litigation and criminal suppression analyses concerning the timing and occurrence of a seizure.
• Show-of-authority submission calibrated to identification failures: Where officers do not identify themselves, courts may treat a person’s immediate stop upon first recognizing police authority as timely submission, even if there was brief intervening flight.
• Gunfire is arrest-level force: A stop commenced with gunfire is treated as an arrest requiring probable cause; use-of-force reasonableness will be assessed against that higher threshold.
• “Self-created danger” in vehicle encounters: Officers cannot step into a car’s path and bootstrap their own peril into justification for deadly force.
• Warrantless vehicle seizures scrutinized: Taking control of a person’s vehicle (by separating the person from it) without a warrant or exception remains a clear constitutional violation.

Training, policy, and operational guidance

• Identification matters: Officers should affirmatively identify themselves—especially at night, in unlit areas, and in plain or dark attire—before issuing commands. Failure to do so undercuts reasonable suspicion, escalates risk, and can defeat qualified immunity.
• Lights and sirens: Covert approaches to suspected property crimes in commercial areas carry high constitutional risk; activating visible and audible signals is often the safer and more legally defensible path.
• Avoid stepping into vehicular paths: Officers should avoid tactics that place them in a vehicle’s path; doing so may be deemed unreasonable and will foreclose a deadly-force justification.
• Shooting at moving vehicles: Agencies should revisit policies that generally prohibit firing at moving vehicles except to counter an imminent threat, and ensure line officers understand that shooting at a car seizes the driver and likely elevates the encounter to an arrest.
• Property seizure protocols: When vehicles are to be held or processed, secure a warrant or ensure a clear exigency; mere involvement in an incident does not suffice.

Litigation landscape

• Circuit alignment and potential split: The Eleventh Circuit explicitly adopts the Torres framework to treat shots that strike a vehicle as a seizure of the driver, aligning with the Fifth Circuit (Flores) and consciously departing from pre-Torres rulings in the Sixth, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits. This clear articulation may invite further en banc or Supreme Court attention if other circuits resist.
• Summary judgment practice: Disputes about visibility, identification, and officer-created peril will frequently present jury issues. Defendants relying on “vehicle-as-weapon” narratives should expect careful scrutiny of whether officers clearly identified themselves and whether they placed themselves in harm’s way.
• Criminal procedure implications: The timing of seizures (by force or show of authority) affects suppression analyses; Watkins solidifies that a seizure may occur earlier than officers assume once rounds strike a car or a subject submits upon first recognizing police authority.

Complex Concepts Simplified

• Seizure by physical force vs. show of authority: You are seized by force if officers physically touch you (directly or indirectly, e.g., via a bullet) with intent to restrain, regardless of whether you submit. You are seized by show of authority only when you actually submit to police commands or coercive signals (e.g., gunfire, shouted orders).
• “Touching” the person via the vehicle: At common law, hitting a rider’s horse or carriage counted as touching the rider. Modern cars are the analogs. So bullets that hit your car while you’re driving “touch” you for seizure purposes.
• Reasonable suspicion vs. probable cause (and “arguable” versions): Reasonable suspicion is a low threshold to briefly detain; probable cause is a higher threshold to arrest. For qualified immunity, the question is whether a reasonable officer could have believed those thresholds were met (“arguable” reasonable suspicion/probable cause).
• Deadly force (Garner): Police may use deadly force only if the suspect poses an immediate threat of serious harm (or has committed a serious violent crime), it is necessary to prevent escape, and warning is given if feasible.
• Exigent circumstances (property seizures): Warrantless seizures are usually unlawful unless there’s an emergency—e.g., to prevent imminent harm. No exigency, no warrantless seizure.
• “Chronological blinders” (Barnes): Courts must assess reasonableness in context, considering the whole interaction and what officers knew before the split-second decision, not just isolated slivers of time.

Notable Distinctions and Limits

• Narrowness of the show-of-authority holding: The Court’s acceptance of “delayed” submission hinges on the extraordinary facts: officers did not identify themselves; the scene was dark; and the plaintiff stopped at the first reasonable opportunity upon recognizing police. This is not a general relaxation of Hodari D.’s submission requirement.
• Property seizure scope: The Court did not need to decide whether merely shooting a car (without separating the owner from it) would itself be a seizure of property. Here, separation and control made the seizure clear.
• Fact disputes reserved for trial: Whether Officer Davis was ever in the vehicle’s path, whether he was visible in time for the driver to react, and other granular facts remain for a jury.

Conclusion

Watkins v. Davis re-centers Fourth Amendment analysis on common sense and common law. By holding that bullets that strike a car seize the driver by force, the Eleventh Circuit gives effect to Torres’s logic in the vehicular context with a memorable throughline: touching the vehicle touches the person. The Court also clarifies that officers’ stealth and failure to identify themselves cannot be leveraged to create reasonable suspicion out of a frightened person’s flight; that gunfire initiates an arrest demanding probable cause; that deadly force against a non-dangerous driver violates clearly established law; and that separating a person from her vehicle is a seizure of property requiring a warrant or exception.

Beyond settling the law for the Circuit, the opinion sets practical guardrails. Officers must identify themselves, avoid tactics that create the very dangers they invoke, and refrain from shooting at moving vehicles except in the rarest circumstances. For litigants, Watkins supplies a robust framework—grounded in text, history, and precedent—for challenging gunfire-initiated stops and vehicle shootings. For agencies, it signals the need for policy and training recalibration. And for courts, it offers a coherent synthesis of Torres, Garner, Hodari D., and modern policing realities.