Reply Brief for Plaintiff-Appellant Brandon Velez

Defendants don’t want to face the evidence, including video footage, that shows them escalating a traffic stop in front of Velez’s home to a forceful arrest because Velez exercised his First Amendment rights. So, instead of dealing with the record directly, Defendants rely entirely on the district court’s (improper) view of the record, which on appeal from that court’s grant of summary judgment is subject to this Court’s de novo review. Besides ignoring the evidence that favors Velez, Defendants leave unaddressed this Court’s key cases, citing only precedent in which officers confronted wildly different circumstances from those presented here. When genuine disputes of material fact are resolved in Velez’s favor, the facts left are these: Defendants followed Velez home and then arrested him by grabbing, punching, and tasing him after he criticized them for opening his car door without warning and tried to record the traffic stop. They then contrived various, implausible justifications for the arrest. And the record shows that they had received no training on managing individuals’ efforts to exercise First Amendment rights during traffic stops. Applying binding precedent to those facts, Defendants violated Velez’s clearly established rights under the Fourth Amendment and state law. The Court should thus reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendants and remand for trial