Punt’s actions, Heather Brawley said, violated her husband’s constitutional rights to due process and to be free from unreasonable or excessive force.

The Jan. 6, 2013, shooting occurred as Brawley tried to flee in Punt’s patrol car after being arrested in the wake of a three-hour standoff stemming from a burglary investigation on the 800 block of Miles Avenue. Punt had left Brawley in his vehicle, which had two loaded firearms and the keys in the ignition, to go talk to other officers at the scene.

When Punt realized Brawley was trying to flee, he ran to his cruiser, got hit in a glancing way as Brawley was backing up and fell to the ground. Brawley put the car into drive and tried to go forward. Punt got up, ran toward his cruiser and fired his service weapon nine times. Brawley was hit once and died from a single gunshot wound that struck him in the armpit.

Molloy ruled for Punt saying that “even if the use of force was not objectively reasonable, the law at the time did not clearly establish that Officer Punt’s conduct would violate the Constitution.”

The U.S. Supreme Court “has always found that an officer is entitled to qualified immunity in a shooting involving a fleeing vehicle,” Molloy said. And the high court “always holds that the law in such cases was not clearly established,” he said.