Case 1:16-cv-01664-CMA-KMT Document 38 Filed 09/19/16 USDC Colorado Page 1 of 16

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Civil Action No. 16-cv-1664-CMA-KMT
ESTATE OF RYAN RONQUILLO, by and through
APRIL SANCHEZ, as personal representative;
Plaintiff,
v.
CITY AND COUNTY OF DENVER; et al.,
Defendants.
______________________________________________________________________________
PLAINTIFFS RESPONSE TO DEFENDANT INGERSOLLS MOTION TO DISMISS
WITH REQUEST FOR HEARING
______________________________________________________________________________


Plaintiff, through counsel, Holland, Holland Edwards & Grossman, P.C.,
responds to Defendant Ingersolls Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 26) as follows:
I. INTRODUCTION
This case is not, as Defendant Ingersoll would characterize it, about whether a
lone police officer, acting independently, may drive a car fast, hit a suspects vehicle
with an unmarked police car bumper, break a car window, or grab at a suspect sitting in
a car. See Doc. 26 at 9-12. Rather, this is about whether a group of police officers, in
seizing an unarmed and non-threatening young man suspected of a property crime, can
purposely launch a coordinated assault and deliberately provoke a crisis that
foreseeably leads to the death of the up to then non-threatening suspect.
When Defendant Ingersoll and his co-Defendants began carrying out the instant
seizure, Ryan Ronquillo was indisputably sitting peaceably in his car, parked at the

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Romero Family Funeral Home, the site of an ongoing funeral. Compl. 3, 30-36, 38.
Mr. Ronquillo had been at the funeral earlier in the afternoon, and was gathering himself
in his car, preparing to go back inside to grieve the loss of his friend. Compl. 24-25,
27, 36, 84. Mr. Ronquillo was suspected only of property crimes. Compl. 29. He was
unarmed. Compl. 29, 77, 81-82. There were no exigent circumstances justifying a
violent assault on Mr. Ronquillo, much less a deadly shootout in a funeral parking lot
crowded with cars and bystanders. Compl. 38-39, 43, 78-84, 207, 215.
Nevertheless, Defendant Ingersoll, his co-Defendants and other officers
swarmed recklessly into the funeral parking lot, nearly running over a number of other
funeral attendees. Compl. 47-54. As shown on the videos, they then immediately
initiated a totally unjustified violent assault on Mr. Ronquillo without affording him the
slightest opportunity to surrender. Compl. 58-62, 67-76, 85-105. In the face of such a
sudden and unprovoked assault, Mr. Ronquillo did what normal human beings dohe
tried to move away from the people assaulting him. Compl. 101, 104-05. This
reasonable and foreseeable self-defensive decision proved to be a death sentence.
Since at least 1985 and Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, 8 (1985), it is plain
that reasonableness depends on not only when a seizure is made, but also how it
is carried out. Since 1995, the Tenth Circuit has repeatedly held that [t]he
reasonableness of the use of force depends not only on whether the officers were
in danger at the precise moment that they used force, but also on whether the
officers' own reckless or deliberate conduct during the seizure unreasonably
created the need to use such force. Pauly v. White, 814 F.3d 1060, 1071 (10th Cir.

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2016) (quoting Sevier v. City of Lawrence, Kan., 60 F.3d 695, 699 (10th Cir. 1995))
(further citation omitted) (emphases added).
Defendants motion invites error by asking this Court to reject a totality of the
circumstances approach and instead put blinders on, restricting judicial review to only
the precise moment of killing. Defendant Ingersoll also asks that the Court consider him
in isolation, as if he was acting alone, even though he was de facto in charge of this
arrest. Defendant further attempts to divert the Court to inapposite cases, none of which
involved this kind of outrageous pre-shooting deliberate police assault on an unarmed
and then-peaceable suspect.
When the Court instead looks carefully at the bigger pictureand fairly considers
Defendant Ingersolls actions as an integral part of this coordinated police assaultit is
clear that Defendant Ingersoll and his co-Defendants both illegally deliberately created
this crisis and then ended it. Clearly established Fourth Amendment jurisprudence does
not allow such reckless and deliberate police assaults to later justify or excuse the killing
of a suspect. If it did, our courts would essentially elevate police conduct above legal
scrutiny, allowing police to unconstitutionally apply any level of force they desired so
long as they provoked/created the crisis and then, as here, use their own manufactured
crisis to try to make their subsequently deployed deadly force seem reasonable at the
moment of application.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
As the Court very well understands, [i]n reviewing a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a
court must accept all the well-pleaded allegations of the complaint as true and must

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construe them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Browne v. City of Grand
Junction, Colorado, 85 F. Supp. 3d 1249, 1253 (D. Colo. 2015) (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted). To survive summary dismissal, Plaintiffs must plead only
enough facts to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face. Bell Atl. Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007); Browne, 85 F. Supp. 3d at 1252-53. Plausible
does not mean likely to be true, but is, instead, a nudge beyond conceivable. See
Robbins v. Oklahoma, 519 F.3d 1242, 1247 (10th Cir. 2008). Defendant Ingersoll, like
his co-Defendants in their Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 21), challenges materially disputed
allegations as if this case were at the summary judgment phase. It is not. The
allegations Plaintiff has made are to be accepted as true. When this is done they
unquestionably state a claim.1
III. ARGUMENT
A. Defendant Ingersoll, in coordination with his co-Defendants, violated Mr.
Ronquillos Fourth Amendment rights.
Defendant Ingersoll jointly and actively participated in this coordinated group
assault on an arrestee who was sitting in a parked car, unarmed, and preparing himself
to join the ongoing funeral inside the Romero Family Funeral Home. Defendant Ingersoll
and his co-Defendants entirely provoked this crisis, which he and the other individual
Defendants then used as pretext to justify shooting Mr. Ronquillo in the head and

1
The appropriate standard of review for Defendant Ingersolls Motion to Dismiss
(emphasis added) is not the summary judgment standard. Defendant Ingersoll, along
with his Denver co-Defendants, have muddied the water on this important point, both by
submitting additional exhibits and by citing to many decisions made by courts deciding
motions for summary judgment. Of course, if this case were at summary judgment
stage, material disputes about central facts already abound and would also preclude
such a remedy.

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neck. Rather than intervening to stop the unnecessary and unreasonable escalation of
force on Mr. Ronquillo, Defendant Ingersoll very aggressively overtly participated in the
group assault. He can be seen doing so. Defendant Ingersolls actions should be
analyzed together with those of his co-Defendants.
Excessive force claims are to be analyzed under the Fourth Amendment
standard of objective reasonableness, judged from the perspective of a reasonable
officer on the scene. Pauly, 814 F.3d at 1070 (citations and internal quotation marks
omitted). However, for more than twenty years the Tenth Circuit has clearly established
that this includes careful study of police officers preceding reckless or deliberate
conduct, which creates any subsequent need to use deadly force. Such conduct is part
of the objectively reasonable analysis where, as here, it is immediately connected to
the later use of force. Sevier, 60 F.3d at 699; Allen v. Muskogee, 119 F.3d 837, 840
(10th Cir. 1997) (citations omitted); Medina v. Cram, 252 F.3d 1124, 1132 (10th Cir.
2001); Cordova v. Aragon, 569 F.3d 1183, 1188 (10th Cir. 2009).2 Such an approach is
in keeping with the United States Supreme Courts mandate that excessive force cases

2
While many simpler Fourth Amendment excessive force cases focus on the three
standard Graham factors: the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses
an immediate threat to the safety of officers or others, and whether he is actively
resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight, this case is one of those cases
that explains well why these three factors were not intended to be exclusive, and
the circumstances of a particular case may require the consideration of additional
factors. Pauly v. White, 814 F.3d 1060, 1070 (10th Cir. 2016) (quoting Graham v.
Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989)) (further citation omitted) (emphasis added); see also
Cordova v. Aragon, 569 F.3d 1183, 1188 (10th Cir. 2009) (discussing the three
standard Graham factors and noting: Additionally, we have considered whether the
officers' own reckless or deliberate conduct during the seizure unreasonably
created the need to use such force.) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)
(emphasis added).

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be subjected to an all-things-considered analysis. Casey v. City of Federal Heights,

509 F.3d 1278, 1284 (10th Cir. 2007) (citing Graham, 490 U.S. at 396).3
Courts sometimes conduct the qualified immunity analysis Defendant-byDefendant. But in this Circuit, Judges are not required to do so in group-assault or useof-force cases like this one. See, e.g., Estate of Booker v. Gomez, 745 F.3d 405, 42123 (10th Cir. 2014); Lundstrom v. Romero, 616 F.3d 1108, 112627 (10th Cir. 2010);
Fisher v. City of Las Cruces, 584 F.3d 888, 895902 (10th Cir. 2009); York v. City of
Las Cruces, 523 F.3d 1205, 121011 (10th Cir. 2008). A court properly analyzes
conduct in the aggregate rather than individually, where, as here, the facts show that:
(1) all Defendants actively and jointly participated in the use of force, and (2) even if a
single deputys participation did not constitute excessive force, that deputy could be
liable under a failure-to-intervene theory. Booker, 745 F.3d at 421.4

3
In Allen v. Muskogee, Defendant Officers approached an armed suspect sitting in a
parked car. 119 F.3d 837, 839 (10th Cir. 1997). The officers reached into the car and
struggled with the suspect to disarm him. Id. During the struggle the officers fired twelve
bullets into the car and killed the suspect. Id. The entire interaction, from the moment of
the first officers arrival to the moment of the shooting, took ninety seconds. Id. at 839,
841. In reversing the District Courts ruling for the Defendant Officers on summary
judgment, the Allen court held: "Clearly, the officers' preceding actions were so
immediately connected to Mr. Allen's threat of force that they should be included in the
reasonableness inquiry." Id. at 841 (internal quotation marks omitted).
4
Defendant Ingersoll is sued both because he assaulted Mr. Ronquillo and failed to
intervene to stop this brutality. In Booker, Marvin Booker was restrained, brutalized, and
ultimately killed by a group of Denver Sheriffs deputies coordinated assault. Booker,
745 F.3d at 409, 412-16. Some Defendants applied excessive force directly to the
Plaintiff, while others failed to intervene to stop the application of excessive force. See
id. at 413-14, 421-23. Rather than separately analyze each Defendants conduct, the
Tenth Circuit in Booker looked at the collective effort by all Defendants to subdue Mr.
Booker, holding that all Defendants actively participated in a coordinated use of force,
and that [i]f excessive force occurred, all deputies contributed to it. Id. at 422.

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It cannot be overemphasized that this assault on Mr. Ronquillo began as he sat

peaceably in his car preparing to go back into the Romero Family Funeral Home.
Compl. 24-25, 27, 36. He was unarmed. Compl. 29, 38-39, 81-82. He was not a
threat to anyone. Compl. 29, 38-39, 78-80. Mr. Ronquillo had been at the funeral
earlier in the day and had been seen crying and grieving the loss of his friend. Compl.
25, 27, 134-35. There were no reports that day of any violence or threats by him to
anyone. He had not been driving dangerously. Compl. 28-29, 78-80, 134-35.
Defendant Officers knew all of this, as a number of them had been following him with
GPS for hours. Compl. 28. At least some of the assaulting officers also admittedly
knew a funeral was taking place inside the Romero Funeral Home as they converged
on the parking lot. Compl. 30-35. Had these Defendant officers just waited a few
more minutes, it can be reasonably inferred that Mr. Ronquillo would have gotten out of
his car and walked unarmed towards the funeral home entrance, during which time he

Here, as in Booker, Defendants assault and subsequent killing of Mr. Ronquillo
was a coordinated group effort, such that each Defendant, including Defendant
Ingersoll, actively and jointly participated in an objectively unreasonable use of force on
Mr. Ronquillo, creating this crisis and resulting in Mr. Ronquillos death when he
foreseeably attempted to avoid further severe injury. Compl. 58-62, 67-76, 85-105.
Defendant Ingersoll has no reasonable basis for asking this court to characterize
his conduct as that of a completely isolated and independent actor, unaware of and not
an active participant in this group attack on Mr. Ronquillo. See Doc. 26 at 9-12.
Defendant Ingersolls out-of-context list of the allegations against him ignores their wellplead role in the larger group assault and the crisis his actions undeniably helped
create. Id.; Compl. 45-105. As in Booker, 745 F.3d at 413-14, 421-23, Defendant
Ingersoll and co-Defendants Bell, Sandoval, Trujillo, DiManna, Marshall, and White, all
actively and jointly participated in the reckless and deliberate group assault on Mr.
Ronquillo. Defendant Ingersoll did not lift a finger, despite opportunity, to intervene to
stop the assault or the unnecessary and unreasonable escalation of this excessive use
of force. As such, his qualified immunity defense requires a Booker analysis, where his
and the other Defendants conduct is considered in the aggregate.

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could have been easily arrested by the numerous officers converging on the scene
without endangering anyone. Compl. 84.
Instead, Defendant Ingersoll and his co-Defendants decided they had been
following long enough, became recklessly impatient, and abandoned their wellconceived prior plan to arrest Mr. Ronquillo when he landed somewhere and was out
of his car. Compl. 40-42, 136.
As noted, Defendants Ingersoll and Bell led the assault on Mr. Ronquillo by
flying in to the Romero Family Funeral Home parking lot in unmarked vehicles and
nearly running over a number of bystanders. Compl. 45-54. Case leaders Ingersoll
and Bell then used their unmarked vehicles to block the front of Mr. Ronquillos car,
hitting his car with a bumper and forming a wedge. Compl. 55-58.
Without issuing any commands or giving Mr. Ronquillo even a moment to
surrender, Defendant Ingersoll ran up to the front passenger window of Mr. Ronquillos
vehicle. Compl. 58, 67-75, 103-04. Defendant Ingersoll immediately broke out the
window and attempted to drag Mr. Ronquillo out of the car. Compl. 58, 92-97, 99.
Likewise, none of the other Defendant Officers converging on the scene gave Mr.
Ronquillo any commands or a chance to surrender. Compl. 67-76, 103-04. Multiple
observers, including Defendant Trujillo herself, have stated or admitted that Mr.
Ronquillo was not given any commands to put his hands up or exit his vehicle. Compl.
69, 72, 74-75.
While Defendant Ingersoll was trying to pull Mr. Ronquillo out of the passenger
side window, Defendant Sandoval was punching Mr. Ronquillo several times in the face

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and head, lacerating his lip. Compl. 91 (showing laceration), 58, 86-90, 92-96, 99102. As this terrifying Ingersoll-Bell-Sandoval assault was underway, Defendant Trujillo,
who recklessly failed to block Mr. Ronquillos vehicle from the back as he was being
wedged in the front, also recklessly advanced on Mr. Ronquillos car from behind.5
Compl. 65-66. Mr. Ronquillo likely did not see Defendant Trujillo, given that he was
being grabbed by Defendant Ingersoll and simultaneously punched in the face by
Defendant Sandoval. Compl. 65-66, 86-97, 99-102.
This Ingersoll-Bell-Sandoval assault thereby foreseeably provoked Mr. Ronquillo
to reasonably fear for his physical safety and his life, whereupon he attempted to put his
car in gear from a neutral position, and back away from incredible danger in a
predictable act of self-defense.6 Compl. 101,105. In doing so he made accidental
contact with Defendant Trujillo7, whom he likely did not see advancing on his car from
behind. Compl. 65-66 86-97, 99-102, 108-09. Then under the extreme and terrifying
duress from the Ingersoll-Sandoval-Bell assault, Mr. Ronquillo then drove forward, and

5
Reckless and deliberate officer positioning is part of the objectively reasonable
analysis. See, e.g., Zia Trust Co. ex.rel. Causey v. Montoya, 597 F.3d 1150, 1154-55
(10th Cir. 2010) (holding that the reasonableness analysis clearly included
consideration of the Defendant officers reckless and deliberate placement of himself in
front of the suspect van).
6
When subjected to unreasonable or excessive force, arrestees have a right to defend
themselves from police assault. C.R.S. 18-8-103, with emphases supplied, expressly
recognizes this legal right to citizens as follows: It is no defense to a prosecution under
this section that the police officer was attempting to make an arrest which was in fact
unlawful, if he was acting under color of his official authority, and in attempting to make
the arrest, he was not resorting to unreasonable or excessive force giving rise to
the right of self-defense.
7
Defendants seems to mock this contact as being accidental, but it fairly so appears,
and as shown in detail in the response to the Denver Defendants brief, the Court must
be very careful about accepting such self-serving interpretations given that Ryan
Ronquillo is dead and cannot be heard.

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without any possibility of leaving, into the Ingersoll-Bell vehicle wedge. Compl. 111,
116-17. Even though he was headed towards the wedge, and even though all
Defendant Officers had by this time retreated to covered positions at the side and rear
of Mr. Ronquillos vehicle, Defendants Trujillo, DiManna, Marshall, and White, in a
textbook example of contagion fire, collectively fired eleven rounds at Mr. Ronquillos
surrounded vehicle, killing him on the spot. Compl. 111-26.
The entirety of this escalating and only partially video-recorded brutality, from the
moment Defendant Ingersoll arrived on the scene to the killing of Mr. Ronquillo, took
less than a minute. Defendant Ingersoll was indisputably involved throughout. His
actions were immediately connected to any alleged threat the shooting Defendants
may have perceived from Mr. Ronquillo. See Allen, 119 F.3d at 841. Defendant
Ingersolls actions are therefore a necessary part of the reasonableness analysis.
As discussed more fully in Plaintiffs response to the Denver Defendants motion,
at pages 9-11, the four Defendant Officers who shot Mr. Ronquillo had no objectively
reasonable basis for their application of deadly force. While Defendant Ingersoll didnt
pull a trigger, he failed to intervene to stop the shooting after participating in the
preceding assault. His role in this objectively unreasonable crisis-provoking assault was
immediately connected to, and the (or a) foreseeable and direct cause, of any threat the
shooting officers may have wrongly perceived when they executed this unarmed
suspect, wanted for property crimes.
Defendants citations involve no similar coordinated preceding police assault on
an unarmed and peaceable property thief suspect. In none of his cases did the

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Defendant officers deliberately provoke their suspects into a very normal and
predictable human self-defensive reaction. For example:

Defendant Ingersoll cites Cortez v. McCauley for the proposition that officers can
grab an arrestee and place him in a patrol car. Doc. 26 at 11. However, in
granting the Cortez Defendant officers summary judgment, the court was faced
with police who merely handcuffed a suspected child molester, placed him in the
back of a squad car, and refused to loosen the handcuffs when he complained.
478 F.3d 1108, 1112-14, 1126-29 (10th Cir. 2007). After they learned the report
of child molestation was likely false, the officers let the suspect go with only de
minimis injuries. Id. at 1128-29. The Defendants did not assault the Plaintiff or
manufacture a crisis to justify shooting him dead. See id. at 1112-14.

Defendant Ingersoll cites Barboa v. Baird for the proposition that a suspect
fleeing in a vehicle and driving towards an officer can be stopped with deadly
force. Doc. 26 at 11-12. Barboa, an adjudication of a summary judgment motion,
does not involve any pre-shooting reckless or deliberate crisis-provoking conduct
by the Defendant officers. See Barboa, 81 Fed. Appx 301, 302-03 (10th Cir.
2003). Rather, the Barboa arrestee, who was not provoked to defend his own
bodily integrity by a group assault, concededly fled police in his vehicle, hit a
utility pole, slid into a ditch, and then fled on foot. Id. at 302-03. He then
carjacked another truck and sped away, in the process dragging a chasing
officer. Id. The Barboa Plaintiff then turned this truck directly and deliberately
towards another officer who he clearly saw. Id. at 303. In affirming the lower
courts grant of summary judgment to the targeted Defendant officer, who fired a
single non-fatal shot, the Barboa court focused on the clear threat to the shooting
officer, as well as the threat to the public presented by a man the court worried
could have continued driving in the same desperate manner [as] he had been
doing all morning. Id. at 304.

Defendant Ingersoll cites Olseth v. Larson for the proposition that officers can
shoot at fleeing suspects who present a risk to others. Doc. 26 at 11. In Olseth,
the Defendant police officer shot an arrestee who he had handcuffed and placed
in the front passenger seat of his still-running police car. 396 Fed. Appx. 539,
539-41. At no time before the shooting did the Defendant officer assault the
arrestee and cause her to flee physical danger. See id. Rather, the arrestee, later
convicted of escape, slid over to the drivers seat of the squad car and
attempted a getaway. Id. In finding no excessive force and granting summary
judgment to Defendants, the Olseth court noted that the escaping arrestee was
[m]oving away in a car she admittedly could not control, (due to the handcuffs),
and thus presented a clear threat to officers and the public. Id. at 542.

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A much more important case for this Courts analysis, given the posture and
substance of the instant case, is the recent decision Choate v. City of Gardner, Kan.,
where police responded to a 911 call reporting a drunk, armed-with-a-gun, and possibly
suicidal woman. 2016 WL 2958464 *1 (D. Kan.). Defendant officers entered the home
and repeatedly asked the intoxicated woman where the gun was, but failed to restrain or
remove her from the room. Id. The woman eventually produced the gun, said, Oh, here
it is, and was then immediately shot dead by the officers. Id. Based on their body-cam
video footage, Defendant officers moved for dismissal, arguing that they acted
reasonably and asserting qualified immunity. Id. at *2. The Choate court refused to
dismiss the case pre-discovery on such grounds, explaining that the Plaintiff had
plausibly alleged, and the video did not clearly refute, the officers unreasonable preshooting failure to restrain or remove the decedent from the room. Id. at **2-4. The
Court also rejected Defendants qualified immunity defense, quoting extensively from
Olsen v. Layton Hills Mall, which noted the general lack of value of the qualified
immunity defense, as applied to the heavily fact-dependent reasonableness inquiry. Id.
(quoting Olsen v. Layton Hills Mall, 312 F.3d 1304, 1313-14 (10th Cir. 2002)).
Like the Choate Defendants, Defendant Ingersoll and his co-Defendants are
attempting to dismiss this very heavily fact-dependent case pre-discovery, in part relying
on a qualified immunity defense that is of less value when raised in defense of an in
excessive force claim. Olsen, 312 F.3d at 1314 (citing Medina, 252 F.3d at 1131). This
court should reject such an invitation, because as shown, the particular facts and
circumstances surrounding the police assault and killing of Mr. Ronquillo demand a

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wide-angle lens and an aggregated analysis of the Defendants pre-shooting conduct,

which the videos alone cannot possibly provide. Defendant Ingersoll is fully liable even
though he didnt pull one of the triggers.
B. Multiple Tenth Circuit and Supreme Court cases clearly establish that
police officers may not recklessly and deliberately precipitate a crisis and
then use that crisis to justify the application of excessive force.
A constitutional right is clearly established where it would be clear to a
reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted. Pauly,
814 F.3d at 107475 (quoting Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 207 (2001) (additional
citation and internal quotation marks omitted). However, [t]he plaintiff is not required to
showthat the very act in question previously was held unlawful to show that a right is
clearly established. Id. at 1075 (citing Weigel v. Broad, 544 F.3d 1143, 1153 (10th Cir.
2008)). This is particularly true in excessive force cases, which require[] an all-thingsconsidered inquiry with careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each
particular case, and where there will almost never be a previously published opinion
involving exactly the same circumstances. Casey, 509 F.3d at 1284 (citations and
internal quotation marks omitted).8
As mentioned at the outset, the United States Supreme Court has continuously
been clear that the objective reasonableness of a Fourth Amendment seizure is a
heavily fact-dependent analysis, which must include consideration of how the seizure

8
Emphasizing this point, the Casey court stated: We cannot find qualified immunity
wherever we have a new fact pattern[t]he Hope decision shifted the qualified
immunity analysis from a scavenger hunt for prior cases with precisely the same facts
toward the more relevant inquiry of whether the law put officials on fair notice that the
described conduct was unconstitutional. 509 F.3d at 1284 (citing Hope v. Pelzer, 536
U.S. 730, 741 (2002)) (additional citations and internal quotation marks omitted).

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was carried out. Garner, 471 U.S. at 8 (citations omitted). This fundamental principle,
applicable fully to the Denver Defendants motion as well, has been extensively applied
by the Tenth Circuit over and over to the more specific context of police officers
preceding reckless and deliberate conduct, since at least 1995, in the oft-cited Sevier v.
City of Lawrence. Numerous other Tenth Circuit cases have built on Sevier and further
put law-enforcement officials on clear notice that their pre-seizure reckless and
deliberate conduct is included in the reasonableness inquiry, and that such conduct may
render them liable for a subsequent application of excessive force. See, e.g., Allen v.
Muskogee, 119 F.3d 837, 840 (10th Cir. 1997) (quoting Sevier, 60 F. 3d at 699);
Medina, 252 F.3d at 1132; Hastings v. Barnes, 252 Fed.Appx. 197, 203-205 (10th Cir.
2007) (holding that the unreasonableness of Barnes and Davis' actions was
clearly established by Allen and Sevier.) (emphasis added); Cordova v. Aragon, 569
F.3.d 1183, 1191 (10th Cir. 2009).9
Any reasonable police officer in Defendant Ingersolls position understands that
he or she cannot attempt to arrest an unarmed and non-threatening suspect of a
property crime by physically assaulting the suspect, without offering even the slightest
chance to surrender, and then kill them when they react in self-defense.

9
The Tenth Circuits most recent explication of the above clearly established law,
applicable to the facts of this case, is set forth in Pauly v. White, 814 F.3d at 107576.
The Pauly court held that despite not having pulled the trigger themselves, the preshooting reckless and deliberate conduct of two of Defendant officers was so egregious
that a reasonable person in their position should have understood that their behavior
would cause the arrestee to exercise his right of self-defense, which would in turn cause
another officer to shoot and kill the Plaintiff. A person being attacked in a car has an
analogous right of self-defense. See C.R.S. 18-8-103.

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IV. CONCLUSION
Defendant Ingersolls motion carefully avoids any discussion of the heart of this
case. This shooting is not about a lone police officer arriving on a scene in a rapid
manner, or a lone police officer using a vehicle to box an individual into a parking
space, or a lone police officer that hit and grabbed at Ronquillo. Doc. 26 at 10. These
facts are only small parts of the totality of these circumstances, about which Ryan
Ronquillo can no longer testify. The un-discussed heart of this case is that Defendant
Ingersoll and his co-Defendants, in a coordinated ambush, deliberately assaulted Ryan
Ronquillo. At no time did Defendant Ingersoll intervene to stop the assault. Rather, he
jointly and actively participated in it and helped precipitate a crisis which four of his coDefendants now weakly hope to use to justify their killing of an unarmed and nonthreatening suspected used car thief, who, when the arrest began, was just sitting in a
parked car preparing to go back inside a funeral to say goodbye to his friend. The Tenth
Circuit has said that such preceding reckless and deliberate officer conduct, which
creates any arguable need for deadly force, is crucial to the objective reasonableness
analysis.10 Defendant Ingersolls Motion to Dismiss should be denied.

10
See the discussion of the moment of shooting in this case being objectively
unreasonable as well and the related cases cited in Plaintiffs Response to Denver
Defendants Motion to Dismiss, at pages 9-11.

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Case 1:16-cv-01664-CMA-KMT Document 38 Filed 09/19/16 USDC Colorado Page 16 of 16

Respectfully submitted this 19th day of September, 2016.

/s/ John R. Holland
John R. Holland
Dan Weiss
Anna Holland Edwards
Erica T. Grossman
Holland, Holland Edwards & Grossman, PC
1437 High Street
Denver, CO 80218
Attorneys for Plaintiff

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that on the 19th day of September, 2016, the foregoing was filed
using the CM/ECF system. I hereby certify I will send electronic notification of said filing
to the following recipients.
Wendy Shea
David Cooperstein
Writer Mott
Denver City Attorneys Office
201 W. Colfax Avenue, Dept. 1108
Denver, CO 80202
Wendy.shea@denvergov.org
David.cooperstein@denvergov.org
Writer.mott@denvergov.org
Attorneys for City of Denver related Defendants
Rebecca Klymkowsky
Rachel Bender
Jefferson County Attorneys Office
100 Jefferson County Parkway, Suite 5500
Golden, CO 80419
rklymkow@jeffco.us
rbender@jeffco.us
Attorneys for Defendant Ingersoll
/s/ Brooke Thiele-LaForest
Brooke Thiele-LaForest, Paralegal

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