ST. LOUIS — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has revived part of an excessive-force lawsuit brought by the family of a man who was fatally shot by a Sikeston police officer after an armed standoff during a mental health crisis.
In an opinion filed Aug. 25, the three-judge panel affirmed the dismissal of claims related to Martin Simmerman’s initial volley of shots but reversed the dismissal of the family’s broader Fourth Amendment excessive-force claim.
The court sent the case back to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri for further proceedings and for reconsideration of related state-law and municipal-liability claims.
According to the court’s opinion, George Holland began experiencing a severe mental health crisis during an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Sikeston.
He spoke incoherently, took out a small pistol and placed it in his mouth, the opinion said. Other attendees left the building safely, while Holland remained alone inside with the firearm.
Sikeston Department of Public Safety officers responded and spoke with Holland through the open front door, identified in the opinion as the building’s only entrance and exit.
Holland stood for much of the encounter about 35 feet from the door, partly concealed in a corridor. He expressed suicidal thoughts, asked to speak with a preacher and local news, and repeatedly refused commands to drop the firearm, the court said.
Officer Simmerman stood halfway in the doorway with his rifle aimed at Holland. After about 15 minutes, Holland moved into the officers’ view, stood in a corner facing them and held the firearm to his right temple.
In what the court described as a split second, Holland moved the firearm down and away from his temple while moving his left arm toward the center of his body and the firearm. Simmerman then fired.
Holland retreated into the corridor while still armed, and Simmerman, followed closely by other officers, went into the corridor. Simmerman fired additional rounds. Holland’s gun later slid onto the floor. Simmerman fired 15 rounds in all and struck Holland at least six times, according to the opinion. Officers rendered aid, but Holland died of his wounds.
Holland’s family sued Simmerman and the City of Sikeston, alleging excessive force under federal law, wrongful death and battery under Missouri law, and claims that the city maintained a custom, policy, pattern or practice that resulted in excessive force and due-process violations.
The district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice after reviewing body-camera footage submitted by the defendants.
The appeals court concluded that the footage contradicted the family’s allegation that Holland never made a menacing action before the first volley.
It said Holland had refused repeated commands to drop the gun and had said, “I kill myself or you kill me. There’s your options.” The court held that, considering Holland’s movements, positioning and statements, Simmerman’s initial volley was objectively reasonable and qualified immunity applied to claims connected to those shots.
But the court said the district court improperly limited the excessive-force claim to the first volley. The second and third volleys occurred after Holland moved behind a wall into the corridor and were not fully captured on the videos, the panel said.
While the footage showed Simmerman firing and Holland’s firearm sliding across the floor, it did not show Holland’s actions, position or condition during those later shots.
At the motion-to-dismiss stage, the court said it had to credit the family’s allegation that Holland did not threaten officers during the second and third volleys because the videos did not conclusively disprove it.
The panel ruled that Simmerman was not entitled to qualified immunity at that stage for those later volleys.
The court directed the district court to reconsider the wrongful-death, battery and city-liability claims because its earlier decisions on those counts were intertwined with its dismissal of the excessive-force claim.
Judge Jane Kelly concurred in part and dissented in part, writing that the video quality did not allow her to conclude that it clearly contradicted the family’s allegations concerning the first volley.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit case number: 25-3020
