Ding-Dong-Ditch-Get-Attacked-By-Sheriff-at-Gunpoint

From Monday’s decision by Judge Amanda Brailsford (D. Idaho) in Cox v. Bingham County Sheriff’s Office:

On November 9, 2021, Plaintiffs Chelsea Cox and six minors were leaving “personal written notes that were folded into paper turkeys” “at the front doors of community members” in “expressions of gratitude for the Thanksgiving season.” After placing a note at a front door, the minors “pressed the doorbell [and] then ran off to maintain anonymity.”

When they went to Defendant Bingham County Sheriff Craig Rowland’s home, he “responded to his doorbell ring by having his wife hand him his service-issued sidearm”; “exited the house brandishing his firearm”; “reached into the car and Yanked (sic) Ms. Cox from the car by pulling her hair”; “pointed his gun at [her] head”; and threatened to kill her. Sheriff Rowland was later criminally charged and pled guilty to one count of aggravated assault in August 2022.

The opinion concluded that the lawsuit could only go forward against Rowland personally, not against the Sheriff’s Office as his employer:

The only basis Plaintiffs conceivably offer to assert liability against the Sheriff’s Office is that it employed Rowland as the Sheriff at the time of the incident. The law is well established, however, that a local government entity is not liable for an individual’s conduct simply because it employed a person whom Plaintiffs alleged violated their constitutional rights. Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. of City of New York (1978). “Instead, plaintiffs must establish that ‘the local government had a deliberate policy, custom, or practice that was the moving force behind the constitutional violation [they] suffered.’” …

Right or wrong, that legal principle is nothing new; but the fact pattern seemed odd enough that I thought it worth blogging about.

Rowland was sentenced to 10 days in jail for the assault, plus three years’ probation.

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