212460P.pdf   07/27/2022  Rodney Brown  v.  Matthew T. Boettigheimer
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  21-2460
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Shepherd, Author, with Erickson and Stras, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil case - Civil rights. Plaintiff was arrested for disturbing the peace 
   at a political rally for then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump. After 
   he was acquitted in state court, he sued defendants, the arresting 
   officers, for violating his civil rights. The district court granted the 
   officers' motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds. Under 
   the totality of the circumstances, the two arresting officers had probable 
   cause at the time of the arrest to believe that plaintiff was engaged in 
   acts or conduct inciting violence or intended to provoke others to 
   violence; further, the two arresting offices had arguable probable cause 
   to arrest and then initiate prosecution against plaintiff because it was 
   not clearly established that doing so would violate plaintiff's right to 
   be free from unlawful seizure, malicious prosecution or First Amendment 
   retaliation; the third officer, who merely wrote up the incident report, 
   was also entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff's malicious 
   prosecution claim, again because there was arguable probable cause to 
   support plaintiff's arrest and the initiation of criminal charges.