Lorenzo Davis v. BILLY ROOK and CHRISTOPHER GIBSON

In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-1655
LORENZO DAVIS ,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
BILLY R OOK and C HRISTOPHER GIBSON ,
Defendants-Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Central District of Illinois.
No. 1:18-cv-01153-JES-JEH — James E. Shadid, Judge.
____________________
A RGUED DECEMBER 12, 2023 — DECIDED J ULY 12, 2024
____________________
Before S CUDDER , S T. EVE, and PRYOR , Circuit Judges.
S CUDDER , Circuit Judge. While awaiting trial at the McLean
County Detention Facility in Illinois, Lorenzo Davis suffered
serious eye injuries upon being attacked by fellow detainees.
Invoking 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Davis sued two correctional offic-
ers on duty at the time of the attack, alleging that they violated
the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by fail-
ing to protect him from the other detainees. The district court
entered summary judgment for the officers, concluding that

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2 No. 23-1655
the evidence, even when viewed in the light most favorable
to Davis, did not permit a finding that either officer acted in
an objectively unreasonable way. We agree and affirm.
I
A
Upon his arrival at the McLean County Jail in April 2016,
Lorenzo Davis reported to F-Block, a maximum-security unit
consisting of six single-occupant cells and a common area.
Fellow detainees Wanyae Massey and Terrell Hibbler lost no
time in interrogating Davis about his criminal charges, threat-
ening to beat him if he refused to answer their questions. Da-
vis’s troubles continued the following morning, April 12,
when several inmates stole his breakfast tray. He reported the
incident to one of two officers on duty, also mentioning Mas-
sey’s and Hibbler’s threats and requesting transfer to another
unit. The identity of that officer is unknown, as Davis remem-
bers only that he spoke to the officer who gave him his break-
fast tray.
Each morning brings with it an opportunity for the in-
mates to clean their cells. April 12 was no exception. After
breakfast, Officer Christopher Gibson placed a bucket of
cleaning supplies in F-Block’s common area in accordance
with standard procedure. Officer Gibson then left F-Block and
walked to the recreation room to supervise the detainees
there.
While Officer Gibson was in the recreation room, inmate
Massey approached Davis in his cell and the two began to ar-
gue. In the course of the argument, Davis accused Massey of
stealing from him, at which point Massey and Hibbler
stepped into the common area, retrieved a broomstick and

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No. 23-1655 3
mop from the area near the cleaning supplies, and then used
both objects to beat Davis, causing serious eye injuries.
Officer Gibson learned about the fight when a hall worker
entered the recreation room and announced that the detainees
in F-Block were “fighting like gladiators.” Officer Gibson
could not abandon the recreation room, though, so he passed
the F-Block keys to Officer Billy Rook, who rushed to Davis’s
cell and immediately called for assistance. Four or five addi-
tional officers responded, ultimately breaking up the fight
and sending Davis to the medical unit.
B
Davis sued Officers Gibson and Rook under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 for failing to protect him in violation of the Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Following discovery,
the defendants moved for summary judgment. The district
court granted the motion, concluding that the evidence did
not permit the inference that a reasonable officer in the cir-
cumstances would have appreciated the risk that Massey and
Hibbler posed to Davis’s safety at the time of the attack. Nor,
the district court continued, did Officer Rook have a duty to
immediately break up the fight before waiting for other offic-
ers to arrive in response to the call for emergency help. The
district court observed that “if it were otherwise, prisoners
could [] initiate a sham fight so as to lure a guard in and over-
whelm him.”
Having resolved the merits of Davis’s claim, the court de-
clined to address the defendants’ qualified immunity defense.
Davis now appeals.

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4 No. 23-1655
II
We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment
by taking a fresh look at the facts and the law, drawing all
reasonable inferences from the record in favor of Davis as the
non-moving party. See Tolan v. Cotton, 572 U.S. 650, 656–67
(2014). We will affirm summary judgment if Davis “has failed
to make a sufficient showing on an essential element” of his
claim on which he carries the burden of proof—in short, if
there is “no genuine issue as to any material fact.” Celotex
Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986).
A
Pretrial detainees have a right to be free from physical
harm inflicted by others in the institution. See Kemp v. Fulton
Cnty., 27 F.4th 491, 494–95 (7th Cir. 2022). This right derives
from the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause,
which prohibits any punishment meted out “prior to an adju-
dication of guilt in accordance with due process of law.” See
Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535 (1979).
The Fourteenth Amendment standard does not require a
pretrial detainee to prove the defendant’s subjective aware-
ness of the risk of harm to establish liability. See Kemp, 27 F.4th
at 497 (explaining that such a requirement “cannot be recon-
ciled” with the Supreme Court’s instruction in Kingsley v.
Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015) to “pay careful attention to
the different status of pretrial detainees” (internal quotations
omitted)). The detainee must prove only that a reasonable of-
ficer under the circumstances would have appreciated the
risk of harm to the detainee, and, from there, that the defend-
ant acted in an objectively unreasonable way in addressing
that risk. See Echols v. Johnson, --- F.4th ----, 2024 WL 3197540

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No. 23-1655 5
at *1 (7th Cir. June 27, 2024); Kemp, 27 F.4th at 497; Thomas v.
Dart, 39 F.4th 835, 841 (7th Cir. 2022).
Do not read us to be saying that the defendant’s personal
knowledge plays no role in the objective reasonableness anal-
ysis. Far from it: the defendant’s knowledge of the factual cir-
cumstances informs whether a reasonable officer under the
same circumstances would have developed subjective or per-
sonal awareness of the risk of harm to the plaintiff. Or, as the
Supreme Court put the point in Kingsley, the district court
must assess the objective reasonableness of the defendant’s
action or inaction “from the perspective of a reasonable officer
on the scene, including what the officer knew at the time, not
with the 20/20 vision of hindsight.” 576 U.S. at 397.
To demonstrate that a reasonable officer in the defendant’s
shoes would have “put the puzzle pieces together” about the
risk of harm, the detainee must show that the defendant actu-
ally received “all the information about a potential health or
safety risk.” See Kemp, 27 F.4th at 496 (citing Castro v. Cnty. of
Los Angeles, 833 F.3d 1060 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc)). It is, after
all, impossible to put a puzzle together without the pieces. See
Kemp, 27 F.4th at 497 (affirming summary judgment in part
because the plaintiff “admitted that he never reported [to the
defendant] his verbal disagreement with [the other detainees]
or the ensuing threats to Jail employees”); Echols, 2024 WL
3197540 at *5 (affirming jury trial verdict for defendants who
had “no reason to believe” under the circumstances that an-
other detainee would assault the plaintiff); Thomas, 39 F.4th at
842 (applying Kingsley and Kemp and reiterating that “an as-
sessment of objective reasonableness must be made on the
facts and circumstances of each particular case” (internal quo-
tation marks omitted)).

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In short, we do not assume that a reasonable officer is om-
niscient. Instead, the first step in evaluating whether the de-
fendant should have appreciated the risk of harm is to take
inventory of the factual information that he received.
B
Turning to the summary judgment record before us, we
agree with the district court that the evidence does not permit
the inference that Officers Gibson or Rook acted unreasonably
by not doing more to protect Lorenzo Davis.
Officer Christopher Gibson: The claim against Officer Gibson
fails because a reasonable officer with his knowledge of the
circumstances in F-Block on the day of the fight had no reason
to suspect that inmates Wanyae Massey and Terrell Hibbler
posed a risk to Davis. Without awareness of the risk of harm
to Davis, a jury could not find that Officer Gibson acted un-
reasonably in failing to take steps to mitigate it.
The record contains no evidence suggesting, for instance,
that Officer Gibson knew about the verbal threats to Davis’s
safety or his request to be moved to another cell block. Officer
Gibson testified in his deposition that he never spoke with
Davis about any threats or risks presented by other detainees.
Nor, for his part, was Davis able to say that he ever spoke to
Officer Gibson about his problems with the other detainees.
Rather, all Davis could do was speculate that he may have
complained to Officer Gibson on the morning of the attack.
On this evidence, we see no basis for a jury to conclude that a
reasonable officer positioned like Officer Gibson would have
suspected imminent violence between Davis and the other
detainees.

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No. 23-1655 7
We also see no way a jury could find that Officer Gibson
failed to protect Davis merely by placing cleaning supplies in
F-Block. The supplies by themselves presented no objectively
perceptible risk of harm, especially when considering Officer
Gibson’s testimony that in his more than 26 years of correc-
tional experience, he had never seen jail detainees wield mops
or brooms at any time as weapons.
Davis insists that the district court’s reliance on Officer
Gibson’s many years of experience and other bits of his per-
sonal knowledge shows that the district court rejected his fail-
ure-to-protect claim under an improper subjective standard.
We disagree. The objective analysis mandated by Kingsley and
our related precedent begins with the defendant’s knowledge
of the factual context and then asks whether a reasonable of-
ficer with that knowledge would appreciate the risk of harm
and still engage in the same conduct. The district court
charted that precise course of reasoning here by ascertaining
“what [Officer Gibson] knew at the time” before concluding
that a reasonable officer in his shoes would not have per-
ceived the risk of assault to Davis. Kingsley, 576 U.S. at 397. A
reasonable officer who had never seen cleaning supplies used
as weapons in 26 years of correctional experience would have
had no reason to suspect that Davis, of all inmates, would
suddenly be attacked during the cleaning period on April 12
with a broomstick and mop.
Officer Billy Rook: We likewise agree with the district court
that the evidence does not permit the inference that Officer
Rook violated the Fourteenth Amendment based on his deci-
sion not to intervene immediately in the fight between Davis
and the other detainees. Remember that the fight was fully
underway when Officer Rook arrived at Davis’s cell. By

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8 No. 23-1655
waiting for back-up to arrive before intervening to break up
the fight, he did what any other reasonable officer would do
in the circumstances—exhibit “due regard” for his own safety
in the first instance. See Shields v. Dart, 664 F.3d 178, 181 (7th
Cir. 2011).
We have explained many times over that an officer may
call for back-up before breaking up a fight. See, e.g., id. (ap-
proving the defendant’s decision not to “open the door to the
day room to command the other detainees to stop the attack”
and instead take “other steps to intervene by promptly calling
for back-up and monitoring the fight from the secure area un-
til other officers arrived”); Giles v. Tobeck, 895 F.3d 510, 514
(7th Cir. 2018) (explaining that it is “reasonabl[e]” to “call[]
for back-up and wait[] for it to arrive, rather than jump into
the fray” alone). A jury could not find that Officer Rook acted
unreasonably when he waited for back-up assistance before
injecting himself into the middle of the beatdown inmates
Massey and Hibbler were inflicting on Davis.
Davis urges us to conclude that Officer Rook should have
taken other steps to protect him, such as pounding on the cell
door, yelling at Massey and Hibbler, or otherwise distracting
the assailants. But it would be entirely speculative for a jury
to conclude that these actions would have stopped the assault
or made any difference at all.
For these reasons, we AFFIRM.

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