The underlying facts, drawn from the plaintiffs' complaint and accepted as true at the motion-to-dismiss stage, are stark. On July 8, 2023, Byers — who had allegedly walked roughly fourteen miles from a Richmond jail after being released despite a temporary detention order — was found barefoot in a Chesterfield County neighborhood, holding a hatchet at his side below his waist. Two officers responded to a 911 call reporting attempted breaking and entering and vandalism. When Corporal Painter arrived, both officers repeatedly ordered Byers to drop the hatchet. Byers ignored the commands but, rather than advancing, began backing away from the officers into the street. One officer deployed a taser; it is unclear whether it connected. Byers, now about 25 feet from the officers with his head turned away from them, was shot three times by Painter. He then turned and ran. Painter fired three or four additional shots, hitting Byers in the back. Byers fell, was handcuffed, and died shortly after. The entire encounter lasted less than two minutes.
The majority opinion, written by Senior Judge Keenan and joined by Judge Gregory, acknowledged that the district court had applied an improper standard — focusing only on the moments immediately before the shooting — because it did not have the benefit of the Supreme Court's intervening decision in Barnes v. Felix, 605 U.S. 73 (2025), which held that courts must consider the totality of the circumstances in excessive-force cases rather than narrowing the inquiry to a single moment. Conducting its own de novo totality analysis using the Graham v. Connor factors, the panel affirmed the denial of qualified immunity on different grounds.
On the constitutional violation prong, the majority held that while the severity of the reported crime — attempted breaking and entering — weighed in Painter's favor, the two more important Graham factors favored the plaintiffs. Byers never raised the hatchet toward the officers, never made a furtive or threatening movement with it, and was actively moving away from the officers throughout the encounter. The majority further held, under the clearly established law prong, that the final shots — fired into Byers's back as he fled — presented an obvious case in which an officer violates a clearly established right under Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985), noting that no Fourth Circuit case has ever granted qualified immunity to an officer who shot a fleeing suspect in the back under comparable circumstances.
On clearly established law, the majority relied principally on Hensley v. Price, 876 F.3d 573 (4th Cir. 2017), and Knibbs v. Momphard, 30 F.4th 200 (4th Cir. 2022), which together established that an officer may not use deadly force against a suspect who possesses a weapon and ignores commands but makes no furtive or threatening movement with it. The majority also noted that Virginia Code section 19.2-83.5, enacted before the shooting, codifies the same principles and placed officers on notice of the statutory requirements for using deadly force.
Chief Judge Diaz dissented, arguing that no prior case clearly prohibited Painter's conduct given the specific circumstances he faced: a suspect holding a dangerous weapon at close range who ignored more than a dozen commands, twice challenged officers to take the weapon, and — in the dissent's reading of the body camera video — slightly raised the hatchet so that the blade faced the officers before the shots were fired. The dissent also argued that the majority understated the threat Byers posed to bystanders, including motorists passing through a nearby intersection. Chief Judge Diaz would have granted qualified immunity without reaching the constitutional merits.
The case, No. 25-1058, was argued September 26, 2025, before the Fourth Circuit. District Judge Roderick C. Young of the Eastern District of Virginia had denied Painter's motion to dismiss in January 2025.