Pickens v. Aldaba

Issue: (1) Whether the District Court erred in denying qualified immunity to the petitioners, law enforcement officers who in an attempt to detain an agitated and aggressive person who needed to be detained, resorted to use of a Taser device (after failed verbal warning and attempts to calm the person) in order to avoid or minimize a hands-on-encounter that was very likely to be dangerous to the individual and the officers' safety and well-being; (2) whether it is a constitutional violation for a law enforcement officer who must detain an agitated and aggressive person to resort to use of a Taser device (after failed verbal warning and attempts to calm the person) in order to avoid or minimize a hands-on-encounter that is very likely to be dangerous to the officer's safety and well-being; and (3) whether the existing law would make it clear to a reasonable law enforcement officer that it violated the law to use a Taser to avoid or minimize the hands-on-encounter with the aggressive person, when that person: i) is clenching and shaking his fists at the officer; ii) has caused hospital staff to be too scared to try to detain him; iii) claims that he is “God” and “Superman,” that the doctors are trying to kill him, and that “only water is pure enough to save him”; and iv) is bleeding from his arms where he removed his own IV tubing which would expose the officers to risk of facial contact with the blood during a hands-on-altercation.