Civil Rights — Wrongful arrest — qualified immunity

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Civil Rights — Wrongful arrest — qualified immunity

Where the plaintiff was not a firefighter but was using a firefighter’s boot to collect donations for charity, and the plaintiff was under a court order not to represent himself as a member of the fire department, the police officer who arrested him is entitled to qualified immunity on the plaintiff’s claim for wrongful arrest.

“Here, determining whether probable cause existed involved the interpretation of Mr. Tebbens’s supervision order. The order stated that Mr. Tebbens was prohibited from ‘hold[ing] himself out’ as a member of the CFD and soliciting ‘in the name of’ the CFD.36 Officer Mushol interpreted this to mean that Mr. Tebbens was not permitted to solicit donations ‘in any[ ]way with
any type of equipment that might resemble or lead people to believe that he might be a firefighter.’ We believe that Officer Mushol’s interpretation is not unreasonable under the circumstances. When Officer Mushol encountered Mr. Tebbens on May 30, he was engaged in the same activity—soliciting funds at an intersection using a boot that bore a close resemblance to
a firefighter’s boot—that led to the conditions of Mr. Tebbens’s order of supervision following his original arrest. Moreover, Mr. Tebbens’s initial understanding of the supervision order, prior to consultation with counsel, was that it would prohibit him from using a boot to solicit funds for his charity. We do not believe we should fault Officer Mushol for interpreting the
order in the same manner as Mr. Tebbens did and the way a reasonable officer could have.”

Affirmed.

11-2400 Tebbens v. Mushol

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Manning, J., Ripple, J.

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