Gina Barton, and Ashley Luthern

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The now-fired Milwaukee police officer who fatally shot Dontre Hamilton in Red Arrow Park in April 2014 violated his constitutional rights by illegally patting him down for weapons, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

The decision is a partial victory for the Hamilton family in their civil suit against the officer and the city. It means they are entitled to receive damages in at least one of their four claims against the former officer, Christopher Manney.

Three remaining claims still need to be decided by a jury, according to the ruling by U.S. District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller. They are: Whether Manney detained Hamilton unlawfully, whether Manney used excessive force against Hamilton and whether the city failed to properly train Manney, particularly with regard to dealing with mentally ill people.

The Hamilton family was pleased with the ruling and "looks forward to it proceeding to trial," said one of the family's attorneys, Jonathan Safran. The trial is set for May 15. City attorneys did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

The incident that resulted in Hamilton's death began when workers at the nearby Starbucks called police to complain that he was sleeping in the park. A pair of officers had twice checked on him earlier and found he was doing nothing wrong.

Manney, the beat officer in the area, unaware of the other officers' actions, retrieved a voicemail about Hamilton and went to the park. He approached Hamilton, who was lying on the ground and asked him to stand.

Chief fired officer

Manney came up behind Hamilton, placing his hands under Hamilton's arms and on his chest in what Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn later described as an "out of policy pat-down." In the confrontation that unfolded after the pat-down, Hamilton got control of Manney's baton and Manney shot Hamilton 14 times.

Six months after the shooting, Flynn fired Manney, saying he did not follow his training about how to deal with emotionally disturbed people and engaged in an improper pat-down.

Manney had no reason to believe Hamilton was dangerous, Flynn said when he fired the officer. Rather, the officer made assumptions based on his perceptions that Hamilton was mentally ill and homeless.

Hamilton's family has acknowledged he suffered from mental illness but said he was not homeless.

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Manney appealed his firing to the city's Fire and Police Commission. After a five-day hearing that resembled a trial, a panel of three commissioners upheld Flynn's decision and agreed Manney broke department rules and should be fired as a result.

Manney then appealed the commission's decision to Milwaukee County Circuit Court, where a judge agreed with the commission.

In his decision last July, Judge Richard J. Sankovitz reiterated that Manney was not fired for the shooting itself — which the judge called "tragic" for both families involved.

"He was fired because he violated Police Department rules, rules against the tactics he employed in approaching Mr. Hamilton that afternoon and about his decision to pat down Mr. Hamilton for weapons, and because these mistakes escalated a routine police encounter into a community catastrophe," Sankovitz said.

Hamilton's family argued that because Sankovitz and other entities already answered the question of whether the pat-down was illegal, the federal court was not required to relitigate the issue.

Stadtmueller agreed, dismissing an argument by the city that because a second appeal by Manney remains pending, the issue of whether his rights were violated had not been definitively decided.

In the same decision, Stadtmueller denied the city's request to throw out the other three claims.

The city argued that Manney was checking the welfare of Hamilton rather than detaining him.

"A reasonable jury could find that Manney was not engaged in a community caretaker function in dealing with Hamilton," Stadtmueller wrote. One reason is that Manney characterized the call as "trouble with suspect."

No criminal charges

Flynn did not discipline Manney for his use of force. State and federal prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against Manney, finding his use of force was justified self-defense.

However, a jury could find that Manney used excessive force both in escalating to firing his gun in the first place and in continuing to fire once Hamilton had stopped moving. Witness accounts differ, which will require a jury to assess their credibility, Stadtmueller said.

As for the final claim, city officials argued that the Police Department properly trains officers on constitutional issues and on use of force.

Hamilton's family countered that the training was not adequate. For years, city officials have known that "encountering mentally ill people is a recurring issue for MPD officers," Stadtmueller wrote. As a result, the department instituted Crisis Intervention Training, a specialized method of de-escalating these encounters and hopefully reducing officers' use of force.

"Manney nevertheless did not receive CIT training or any other specialized training on dealing with the mentally ill," Stadtmueller wrote. "In Plaintiffs’ view, this lack of training caused Manney to respond inappropriately to Hamilton, escalating the violence of the situation, and ultimately leading to Hamilton’s death."

For Hamilton's family to prevail on that claim, they will have to convince the jury that the city knew better training was needed but either intentionally or recklessly did not provide it. Further, they will have to prove "the inadequate training was the moving force behind Hamilton's death," Stadtmueller wrote.