A Florida federal judge just did something that criminal defense attorney James White says you almost never see in real life: he refused to give deputies the usual legal shield after a shooting, and he wrote the denial in a way that reads like a direct reprimand rather than a dry court memo.
White, speaking on his Southern Drawl Law channel, says he didn’t expect this outcome – especially with the legal landscape shifting after Barnes v. Felix – but he argues Judge Gregory Presnell’s opinion out of the Middle District of Florida could be an early sign that courts are getting less willing to shrug and move on when law enforcement creates chaos and then claims it had no choice but to shoot.
At the center of the case, White explains, is a 2022 incident in Kissimmee where an Osceola County Sheriff’s Office operation ended with deputies firing into a vehicle, killing the driver and wounding two other occupants, all after what the reporting described as a petty theft situation in a Target parking lot.
The deputies avoided criminal charges – White notes they weren’t indicted – but the civil lawsuit is where the judge drew a hard line, denying qualified immunity at summary judgment because the facts, viewed in the plaintiffs’ favor, do not support the deputies’ “we feared for our lives” justification.
White calls it a “bench slap,” and while that’s his colorful phrasing, he makes a serious point: opinions like this are rare because judges often avoid writing in a way that reveals emotion, yet Presnell’s language, as White reads it, is blunt, pointed, and unusually unwilling to sanitize what happened.
A Target Parking Lot, A Training Exercise, And A Sudden “Takedown”
White sets the scene by saying this did not start like a traditional police call where officers respond to a violent emergency, but like a training day that bled into real-world policing without the mindset ever fully switching over.
According to White, deputies were conducting a training exercise involving surveillance techniques and installing GPS devices, plus practice on “tactical takedowns,” when they noticed a black Audi in a crowded Target parking lot in Kissimmee.
White says some deputies believed the Audi’s license plate was covered with paper, and they noted masks being worn by people inside, which led them to assume something big was brewing – his phrase is that the deputies essentially convinced themselves they were looking at a serious crime in the making.
At this stage, White’s frustration is obvious, because he argues this is where “cop brain” can turn ordinary observations into a worst-case scenario, and he says paranoia can become the engine that drives decision-making long before any facts justify it.
In the news clip White plays from FOX 35 Orlando, reporter Marie Edinger describes the judge’s view as an “egregious violation of constitutional rights,” and she explains qualified immunity typically protects deputies unless their conduct clearly violates constitutional protections.
Edinger also summarizes key details from the court order, saying deputies used unmarked cars without lights or sirens to block the Audi, and the judge characterized the whole response as wildly disproportionate to what was described as petty theft.
White uses that report as the jumping-off point for his deeper breakdown, arguing that once you accept the case was essentially about shoplifting – later described as pizza and Pokémon cards – the question becomes almost impossible to dodge: why did 28 deputies end up creating a shooting scene in a busy retail parking lot?
The Judge’s Language Wasn’t Subtle
One thing White keeps coming back to is how Presnell wrote the opinion, because he says it’s rare to see a federal judge “editorialize” so openly.
White reads from the beginning of the decision and emphasizes the tone: the judge calls it an “all too familiar” case involving deadly force, then lays out the stark math – White says the opinion notes 28 deputies were dispatched, two deputies fired 31 rounds into an occupied vehicle, one occupant was killed, two were wounded, and the deputies claimed – “as usual,” the judge writes – that they shot because they feared the vehicle.
White’s takeaway is simple: when a judge writes “as usual” in a case like this, he’s telling you he has heard the same story too many times, and he’s not going to pretend it automatically settles the issue.
Edinger’s report includes a line from the order that White clearly enjoys quoting because it’s so sharp: the judge writes that injecting deadly force into “completely avoidable chaos” created to stop “a couple of petty thieves” does not deserve qualified immunity.
That phrase – “completely avoidable chaos” – is the heart of the ruling as White frames it, because it flips the narrative from “the deputies were forced to react” to “the deputies made choices that manufactured the danger.”
There’s also a practical layer here that makes the opinion land harder: Edinger notes the incident happened in a crowded parking lot, with video showing people running away in fear, and the judge called some of the force used “excessive and unreasonable.”
In other words, the risk wasn’t only to the people in the Audi; it was to shoppers, bystanders, and anyone nearby when bullets start flying in a public lot.
“Officer Safety” And The Choices That Undercut It
White spends a big chunk of his analysis on what he sees as the hollow way “officer safety” gets used to justify decisions that actually increase danger.
He argues that if deputies truly believed they were dealing with masked suspects in a vehicle with a covered plate – people they suspected might be planning a robbery or something worse – then letting them move freely, letting them re-enter the car, and then launching a messy takedown in a crowded lot makes no sense.
As White tells it, deputies observed the group in Target and believed they had probable cause for shoplifting, yet they let the suspects leave the store and get back into the Audi before making their move, which he argues is exactly how you create a scenario where a vehicle becomes part of the conflict.
This is where his tone shifts from legal analysis to something closer to moral anger, because he argues policing is supposed to reduce risk, not escalate it, and he suggests the only real reason the takedown happened the way it did is because deputies were “eager to practice their training.”
White highlights a line from the opinion where the judge, citing the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Barnes v. Felix, stresses that when a driver suddenly pulls away, officers have no “particularly good or safe options,” which is precisely why a reasonable officer should avoid creating that situation when there are safer alternatives.
The judge’s logic, as White explains it, is basically: if you know vehicle stops can spiral into split-second life-or-death decisions, why would you force one in a packed Target lot when you had ample opportunity to detain people before they got back in the car, or to surveil until a safer location exists?
White sees this as a major shift because it forces courts to look at the lead-up, not just the moment the trigger was pulled, and he treats that as the real lesson of Barnes: you don’t get to ignore how you got into the danger if your own tactics built the danger in the first place.
The “Block” That Didn’t Block, And The Crossfire Problem
White also mocks the actual mechanics of the takedown, not because it’s funny, but because he thinks the sloppy tactics make the “we had no choice” argument hard to take seriously.
He describes deputies moving in at angles that left a central gap – what he calls an “avenue” for the Audi to escape – which raises the obvious question he keeps circling: if you truly meant to block the vehicle, why leave it a path?
White says the judge relied on a diagram showing how vehicles were positioned, and he argues it reads like a case study in what not to do, especially when the whole group had supposedly been training on these tactics.
Then there’s the part that should make anyone’s skin crawl: White describes what he sees as a crossfire scenario, with deputies firing from multiple positions in a way that risks not just the suspects but other deputies and anyone nearby.
He points out that one deputy is described as firing into the rear window despite knowing multiple occupants were inside, and he portrays the scene as something “antithetical” to officer safety, because the tactic itself multiplies danger.
This connects back to the judge’s central theme – avoidable chaos – because crossfire doesn’t just happen; it’s the product of poor positioning, poor coordination, and a willingness to shoot in a place where the geometry of the scene makes innocent harm more likely.
White’s broader point is that courts have often let “officer safety” become a magic phrase that excuses almost anything, and he suggests Presnell’s opinion is notable because it refuses to treat that phrase like a blank check.
The Human Cost That Gets Lost In Legal Labels
The FOX 35 report White plays doesn’t just talk about legal concepts; it names the people harmed.
Marie Edinger reports that 20-year-old Jaden Baez was killed, 19-year-old Joseph Lowe was shot in both hands and lost a finger, and 18-year-old Michael Gomez was shot multiple times in the back and ribs, while 17-year-old Ian Joy was slammed to the ground – details the judge reportedly called excessive and unreasonable.
One of the most gutting lines in the clip comes from a family member, who says, “I will never be a grandfather ever,” which is the kind of sentence that cuts through legal jargon and reminds you what the stakes actually are.
White does not pretend shoplifting is harmless, but he’s blunt that the justice system cannot accept a world where petty theft is effectively treated like a capital offense simply because the enforcement response spiraled out of control.
He also stresses that the grand jury didn’t criminally charge the deputies, but Edinger reports they did demand policy changes – specifically mentioning changes around body cameras and training for these “takedowns,” now required twice a year – and White treats that as an implicit admission that something about the operation was deeply wrong.
And even if policy changes happen, White’s point is that civil accountability matters because policy updates don’t heal wounds, and they don’t answer the question of whether constitutional lines were crossed.
Why This Ruling Matters Beyond One Parking Lot
White ends his analysis on a cautious but real note of hope, arguing that judges rarely “come down in full force” on law enforcement tactics, especially in qualified immunity cases, and he sees this as a possible shift toward courts taking the Constitution’s limits more seriously.
He also leans on the older Supreme Court framework, mentioning Tennessee v. Garner, which he says remains a key case on deadly force and fleeing suspects, emphasizing the idea that society does not benefit from killing people simply to prevent escape.
White’s commentary here is basically that we have normalized a dangerous equation – flight equals threat equals justified shooting – and Presnell’s opinion appears to reject that equation when the danger was created by the very officers claiming they had no choice.
If White is right, the most important part of this case isn’t the headline phrase “qualified immunity denied,” but the reasoning behind it: the judge is telling law enforcement, and the courts that review these cases, that you can’t stage-manage a high-risk confrontation in a crowded place, botch the tactics, and then hide behind “fear for my life” as if the story begins at the instant bullets fly.
That kind of logic, applied consistently, could force departments to rethink not just when they shoot, but how they plan, where they intervene, and whether the desire to “make the stop” is quietly overriding the duty to keep the public safe.
And if nothing else, White’s reaction captures why so many people – across political lines – watch these rulings closely: when a judge openly calls out “avoidable chaos,” it feels like the system briefly remembering that constitutional rights are supposed to mean something even when the suspect is unpopular, even when the accusation is easy, and even when the badge expects the benefit of the doubt.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.
