Page:Tenorio v Pitzer 10th Circuit.pdf/35

 response." Cordova v. Aragon, 569 F.3d 1183, 1190 (10th Cir. 2009). Imagine the criticism had the officers adopted the district court’s policing strategy and an hour later Tenorio either killed or wounded himself or a family member.

As its sole case supporting Tenorio’s alternate theory that "[Officer Pitzer] and the other officers recklessly and unreasonably created a situation giving rise to Defendant's resort to deadly force," the district court cited to Sevier, 60 F.3d 701 n.10. In Sevier, a father called police for assistance after seeing his son—despondent about troubles with his girlfriend—"sitting on the edge of his bed with a knife in his hand resting on his lap." Id. at 697. Particularly worrisome were the son’s two previous suicide attempts. Id. Upon picking the lock on the son’s bedroom door with the father’s help, two officers opened the door, saw the knife on the son’s lap, and drew their guns. Id. at 698. After declaring that he had done nothing wrong, the son then rose and stood in his bedroom doorway holding the knife. Id. What happened next was disputed. The officers said the son lunged at them with the knife, and the parents denied this. Id. Both officers fired their guns at the son, hitting him six times and killing him. Id.

In addition to their excessive-force claim, the parents had a second claim that the officers "acted recklessly and unreasonably in the events surrounding the seizure and that this conduct immediately led to the shooting." Id. at 700. Because the district court summarily concluded that genuine issues of material fact remained, the Sevier court examined the record to “determine what facts the district court, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, likely assumed." Id. (quoting Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 319 (1995)). In one sentence, the court said that “the record reveals some 22