192462P.pdf   01/28/2021  Ash-har Quraishi  v.  Deputy Michael Anderson
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  19-2462
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Benton, Author, with Smith, Chief Judge, and Kobes, Circuit 
   Judge] 
   Civil case - Civil rights. In action by reporters alleging defendants 
   violated their civil rights by deploying a tear-gas canister at them 
   during the civil disturbances in Ferguson, Missouri following the death of 
   Michael Brown, the district court denied defendant Anderson's motion for 
   summary judgment based on qualified immunity and permitted the reporters 
   to proceed on their First and Fourth Amendment claims, as well as their 
   state law battery claims. Held: taking the facts in the light most 
   favorable to the reporters, the defendant did not have arguable probable 
   cause to use the tear-gas, and the reporters were not engaged in unlawful 
   activity when defendant fired on them; based on a robust consensus of 
   persuasive authority it is clearly established that using an arrest (that 
   lacks probably cause) to interfere with First Amendment activity, such as 
   reporting, is a constitutional violation; a reasonable officer would have 
   understood that deploying a tear-gas canister at law-abiding reporters is 
   impermissible, and he was not entitled to qualified immunity on the 
   plaintiffs' First Amendment claims; however, when defendant deployed the 
   tear-gas, it was not clearly established that his act was a Fourth 
   Amendment seizure, and he was entitled to qualified immunity on 
   plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment claims; defendant was not entitled to 
   official immunity on the state law claims as the plaintiffs were engaged 
   in lawful activity and there was specific evidence inferring conscious 
   wrongdoing by defendant.