⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit hears argument in E.V. versus City of Covina. The case arises from a fatal officer-involved shooting. Police responded to a call reporting a man, Mr. Valdivia, waving a gun in a liquor store parking lot at night. When officers arrived, Mr. Valdivia initially complied by raising his hands and getting on the ground. Moments later he reached down and pulled out what the officers took to be a handgun, and lifted it. The object was later determined to be a BB gun, an imitation of a Glock pistol. The officers could not have known that in the moment, and the Fourth Amendment asks what a reasonable officer on the scene would have perceived, so the object's real character is not what this appeal turns on. You will hear both sides, and the judges, refer to it simply as the gun. What happened in the next few seconds is the heart of the case, and the two sides describe it differently. The officers say he brought the gun up and forward toward them, and that they fired at an immediate deadly threat. The plaintiffs say he was throwing the gun away, and that it had left his hand and was on the ground in front of him before the shots were fired. The district court found that dispute genuine and declined to credit the officers' account at this stage. The central legal issue is whether the officers are entitled to qualified immunity. That turns on two questions: first, whether the officers' use of deadly force was objectively unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment; and second, whether the law was clearly established at the time, so that a reasonable officer would have understood the conduct crossed the line. The district court denied qualified immunity and allowed the case to proceed to trial. The officers appeal that denial.

E.V. v. City of Covina (No. 25-7151) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, argued August 6, 2026.