A federal appeals court has rejected a qualified immunity-based dismissal motion lodged by St. Louis police officers being sued for allegedly violating the rights of a man pepper sprayed and arrested at a protest, writing that factual issues must be resolved for both the lawsuit’s supervisory officer and subordinate officer defendants.
The court set out markedly different reasons and analyses for the two groups of police officers, explaining why claims of qualified immunity did not lead to the dismissal of the action against either set of defendants—or any of the 12 officers at all.
