Mesa Invokes Qualified Immunity After Officers Shot Man Who Dropped His Rifle

The city of Mesa argues officers couldn't confirm Shawn Gagne was no longer a threat after a 2023 apartment standoff. His family alleges police negotiators failed to order a ceasefire.

Mesa Defends Officers Who Killed Gagne After Hours-Long Standoff

The city of Mesa is seeking qualified immunity for the officers who shot and killed Shawn Gagne inside his Phoenix-area apartment in 2023, arguing they had no way of knowing whether he had ceased to be a threat. Courthouse News Service reports that a federal hearing on the case was held Tuesday in Phoenix.

"This is an egregious case," Mesa city attorney Christina Retts told U.S. District Judge Sharad H. Desai. "He repeatedly threatened to kill officers."

The family of Gagne has filed an excessive force and wrongful death lawsuit, contending that after an hours-long standoff, Gagne placed his rifle on the kitchen counter and attempted to walk outside to surrender — at which point at least eight officers fired multiple volleys of bullets through glass windows and doors, each round at least 30 seconds apart.

The Standoff's Origins

Mesa police first responded to a 911 call from Gagne's neighbor, who reported that Gagne had drunkenly fired his weapon into the air on his porch following a heated argument. Surveillance footage showed he had also choked his fiancée and slammed her to the ground.

Officers surrounded the apartment roughly an hour later. Gagne answered the door with a rifle in hand, then closed it and began pacing inside, occasionally aiming the weapon at patrol cars through the windows. Speaking by phone with negotiators Matthew Adair and C. Orr, he talked erratically — threatening to kill himself and others, and telling negotiators he had multiple weapons, multiple magazines of ammunition and was wearing body armor.

A Negotiator's Promise, Then Gunfire

After the first bullet struck Gagne in the face, phone negotiators encouraged him to drop his rifle and come outside, telling him a medical team would be waiting. Instead, Gagne family attorney Sean Anthony Woods told Judge Desai, officers fired "en masse," sending Gagne tumbling down the stairs, then continued shooting as he reached the front door.

"It's almost akin to the negotiator walking him into a firing squad," Woods said.

Woods argued that Adair and Orr had sufficient time to tell fellow officers to stand down, or at minimum to relay the content of their phone conversation before shooting resumed. "This wasn't a split-second interaction," he said.

Desai, a Joe Biden appointee, described whether the negotiators had more time as "debatable."

City's Defense: No Clear Surrender

In its motion to dismiss, Mesa maintains that Gagne's attempted surrender was ambiguous at best. Retts pointed out that he never explicitly stated he was giving himself up.

"He never said he was surrendering. He never said he was leaving his house," she said. "'Saying I'm hit. I'm down' says nothing about his intent to surrender."

Because Adair and Orr were positioned around the corner alongside Gagne's fiancée, with no direct line of sight into the apartment, Retts argued they could not have determined whether Gagne still posed a danger. Under those circumstances, she said, they bore no constitutional duty to order officers who had better vantage points to hold fire.

Once the first round of bullets struck Gagne on the staircase, Retts added, officers on the scene could not have known whether he was still armed, making the subsequent shots legally defensible as well. The record shows that neither Adair nor Orr issued a command to the officer who fired the initial shot, and after that shot — and after Gagne set his rifle down — they did not order a halt to the first or second rounds of gunfire that ultimately killed him.

Pattern-of-Force Allegations

Gagne's family also advances a broader claim: that Mesa operates under a policy, pattern and practice of excessive force. Woods argued that Mesa officers too frequently resort to the highest level of force available, faster than circumstances require. The family's response to the city's dismissal motion lists eight additional instances in which Mesa police shot unarmed individuals.

Retts countered that the plaintiffs fail to link those incidents to any specific policy violation or identifiable pattern of misconduct, arguing that each shooting must be evaluated on its own facts.

"Mr. Gagne escalated himself," she said.

Judge Desai did not indicate when he expects to issue a ruling.

Source: Courthouse News Service