Huong v. City of Port Arthur
961 F. Supp. 1003 (E.D. Tex. 1997)
Holding
An officer's use of deadly force against a mentally ill man armed with a knife and hot grease was objectively reasonable where the officer was cornered and believed the man was about to throw grease at him; the city was not liable under Monell because no constitutional violation occurred and no failure-to-train was shown.
What This Case Is About
A Port Arthur police officer fatally shot Due Loi Thanh Truong, a mentally ill man armed with a butcher knife and a pot of hot grease, after a two-hour standoff at a restaurant. Truong’s family sued the City of Port Arthur under § 1983, alleging excessive force and failure to train. The court granted summary judgment for the city, finding the force objectively reasonable and the training claims unsupported.
The Facts
At approximately 4:45 p.m. on December 27, 1994, Port Arthur police received a call about a “mental subject possibly armed with a knife” at the Pho Tau Bay restaurant. Officer John Leger and several other officers responded and found Truong armed with a butcher knife inside the restaurant.
Over a period of more than two hours, officers and family members attempted to persuade Truong to relinquish the knife and leave the restaurant. All attempts failed. Truong repeatedly refused to put down the weapon and threatened to harm himself and others.
Eventually, Officer Leger found himself backed up against a door with Truong in front of him. Truong was holding a pot of hot grease in one hand and the knife in the other. When Leger believed Truong was drawing the grease back as if to throw it at him, Leger fired one shot. Truong died as a result.
The family sued the City of Port Arthur, alleging the shooting constituted excessive force and that the city’s failure to train officers in alternatives to firearms — such as chemical and stun munitions — caused the constitutional violation.
What the Court Decided
The court granted summary judgment for the city on all claims. On the excessive force claim, the court applied Graham v. Connor’s objective reasonableness standard. Truong had been armed with a knife for over two hours, repeatedly refused commands to disarm, and in the final moments held both a knife and hot grease while approaching an officer who was trapped against a door. The officer had warned Truong multiple times not to approach. Under Tennessee v. Garner, when an officer has probable cause to believe a suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, deadly force is not constitutionally unreasonable.
On failure to train, the court applied City of Canton v. Harris, which requires a plaintiff to show that training procedures were inadequate, the city was deliberately indifferent in adopting the policy, and the inadequacy directly caused the injury. The plaintiffs pointed to a memorandum from Officer Leger requesting funding to attend courses on chemical and stun munitions as alternatives to firearms. But this memorandum was dated May 1995 — five months after the December 1994 shooting. The requested training could not have changed what had already happened. Moreover, Officer Leger met all state-mandated training requirements, and the city had policies prohibiting excessive force.
Because no constitutional violation occurred, the court held it was “irrelevant whether the defendant city’s policies would have authorized such a deprivation,” citing City of Los Angeles v. Heller.
Why This Case Matters for Your § 1983 Case
Huong is relevant to cases involving police use of deadly force against mentally ill individuals — an increasingly common scenario. The case shows that even when officers are dealing with someone in a mental health crisis, the Graham objective reasonableness standard applies. Courts evaluate the threat as it existed in the moment, not whether better-trained officers might have resolved the situation differently.
For failure-to-train claims, the case reinforces that you must show the training deficiency existed at the time of the incident and directly caused the violation. Post-incident evidence that the department later considered additional training is not evidence of a prior deficiency. And compliance with state-mandated training standards, while not dispositive, weighs heavily against a failure-to-train claim.
Key Takeaway
When a mentally ill person armed with weapons threatens an officer who is cornered and unable to retreat, deadly force will typically be found objectively reasonable — even after a prolonged standoff. To challenge such a shooting, you need evidence that the threat had actually diminished at the moment the officer fired, or that the officer’s own actions unreasonably created the dangerous situation. And for failure-to-train claims, you must show a specific training deficiency that existed before the incident and directly caused the constitutional injury.