Civil Rights – prisons — duty to protect

Listen to this article

United States Court of Appeals

Civil

Civil Rights – prisons — duty to protect

Where a prisoner presented no evidence that the prison guards acted unreasonably or knew of a substantial risk of harm, summary judgment was properly granted to the defendants on his failure to protect claim.

“Shields also maintains that the officer on duty during his attack acted with deliberate indifference by failing to verbally command the other detainees to stop the fighting. But correctional officers who are present during a violent altercation between prisoners are not deliberately indifferent if they intervene with a due regard for their safety: ‘A prison guard, acting alone, is not required to take the unreasonable risk of attempting to break up a fight between two inmates when the circumstances make it clear that such action would put her in significant jeopardy.’ Guzman v. Sheahan, 495 F.3d 852, 858 (7th Cir. 2007); Peate v. McCann, 294 F.3d 879, 883 (7th Cir. 2002). The officer here did not open the door to the day room to command the other detainees to stop the attack, but she took other steps to intervene by promptly calling for back-up and monitoring the fight from the secure area until other officers arrived. See, e.g., Guzman, 495 F.3d at 858 (no deliberate indifference where officer saw attack on inmate, called for and secured immediate back-up, but did not admonish attackers to stop; officer’s actions may have constituted negligence but could not be characterized as deliberate indifference). The officers’ 15 to 20 minute delay in arriving on the scene is most troubling but insufficient to constitute deliberate indifference.”

Affirmed.

11-2336 Shields v. Dart

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Gottschall, J., Per Curiam.