DENVER — The 10th Circuit Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court’s decision to deny qualified immunity to an Oklahoma City police officer who shot and wounded a 14-year-old boy playing with a BB gun in an abandoned house.
“Holcomb cannot show that the district court’s recitation of the facts amounts to a ‘visible fiction,’” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Nancy Moritz in a 14-page opinion. “Therefore, we must accept the district court’s finding that Clerkley was unarmed.”
On March 10, 2019, a neighbor called the police to report teenagers playing in an abandoned house, stating that one of them might have a gun.
When Officer Kyle Holcomb arrived, he reported hearing the sound of a BB gun being fired. He then saw 14-year-old Lorenzo Clerkley Jr. climbing out of a basement window. Believing Clerkley was holding a weapon, Holcomb ordered him to drop it before firing four shots, hitting the teenager in the leg and hip.
“The whole encounter lasted seconds, but the parties took starkly different views of it,” wrote the Obama appointee for the panel.
An internal investigation concluded Holcomb was justified in using force because he believed his life was in danger. However, in a lawsuit filed in May 2020, Clerkley’s family maintained that he had left his pellet gun inside and was unarmed when he came face-to-face with Holcomb.
In August 2023, U.S. District Judge Stephen Friot, appointed by George W. Bush, rejected Holcomb’s qualified immunity claim and denied his request for summary judgment. He ruled that a jury should decide whether Clerkley posed a threat when Holcomb shot him.
Holcomb appealed, arguing that the bodycam footage clearly supported his decision. However, the panel found the footage unclear due to its low resolution and obstructing vegetation, which made it difficult to discern any details.
Clerkley’s attorney celebrated the court’s ruling, stating that Holcomb could not justify shooting the teenager.
“Our client was ‘guilty’ of nothing more than being an African American teenager playing with his friends on a vacant property. It nearly cost him his life,” said attorney Bob Blakemore of Smolen & Roytman in Tulsa. “The 10th Circuit reaffirmed the clearly established legal principle that an officer, even when responding to a dangerous reported situation, may not shoot an unarmed and unthreatening suspect.”
Blakemore now expects the case to go to trial.
A spokesperson for the Oklahoma City Police Department declined to comment. Holcomb and the city are represented by attorney Stacey Felkner from the Oklahoma City firm Collins Zorn.
U.S. Circuit Judges Timothy Tymkovich, appointed by George W. Bush, and Joel Carson, appointed by Donald Trump, completed the panel.
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