Judge rejects wrongful death suit over Brooklyn Center police shooting
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A federal judge on Thursday dismissed a wrongful death suit filed by the mother of a man killed by Brooklyn Center police.
Amity Dimock sued the Minneapolis suburb after police fatally shot her son, Kobe Dimock-Heisler, in August 2019.
Erwin Heisler, Dimock-Heisler’s grandfather, called police after Dimock-Heisler, who was autistic, got upset about a fast food order and threatened him with a hammer and knife.
When officers went to the home to check on Dimock-Heisler, the 21-year-old tried to run away, then pulled a knife from between couch cushions.
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According to court documents Officers Cody Turner and Brandon Akers tried to subdue Dimock-Heisler with Tasers, then shot him as he stood up from the floor with a knife in his hand.
U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank dismissed Dimock’s suit. He ruled that the officers are entitled to qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects police and other officials from civil lawsuits unless they knowingly violate “clearly established law.”
Frank ruled that because Dimock-Heisler was holding the knife within feet of the officers, tried to flee, and had made threats that day, the officers’ “belief that [Dimock-Heisler] posed an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury was reasonable.”
The judge wrote that his decision “in no way minimizes the loss that Kobe's family has experienced.”
