United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 19-1435 RACHEL YBARRA, as Special Administrator of the Estate of RAFAEL CRUZ, deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., Defendants-Appellees. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 16-cv-08009 — Virginia M. Kendall, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED DECEMBER 4, 2019 — DECIDED JANUARY 3, 2020 ____________________

Before FLAUM, RIPPLE, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges. FLAUM, Circuit Judge. Rachel Ybarra brought a lawsuit against the City of Chicago and Chicago Police Department Commander Francis Valadez and Officer Monica Reyes for excessive force and wrongful death based on the shooting death of her son, Rafael Cruz. The district court entered sum- mary judgment for the defendants, holding that the officers could have reasonably believed, based on Cruz’s involvement 2 No. 19-1435 in a drive-by shooting and extremely reckless driving, that Cruz posed an imminent threat to others if allowed to escape from the parking lot where they shot him. We affirm. Under the circumstances present in this case, the officers had probable cause to believe that Cruz posed a threat of serious physical harm to others in the immediate vi- cinity. It was therefore not unreasonable for the officers to pre- vent Cruz’s escape by using deadly force. I. Background During the early hours of August 29, 2015, Chicago Police Department Commander Francis Valadez and Officer Monica Reyes (collectively, “the officers”) were in an unmarked po- lice car patrolling a neighborhood where a gang-related shooting had recently occurred. At approximately 1:30 a.m., the officers saw a rear passenger in Rafael Cruz’s Chevy Ta- hoe fire five gunshots at the occupants of another car. Imme- diately after the shooting, Cruz drove away, reaching speeds of 40 to 70 miles per hour in a 30-miles-per-hour zone. Reyes called in an emergency, reporting “shots fired” over the police radio. Valadez was driving and followed Cruz’s Tahoe, which had dark, tinted windows. The officers followed Cruz’s Tahoe through city streets for approximately one mile but did not activate any emergency lights or sirens on their vehicle. With the unmarked police car still following him, Cruz turned westbound and struck a parked car on the north side of the street with enough force that it pushed the car forward into a second car parked roughly a car-length in front of it, causing the second car to roll into a third. Despite that colli- sion, Cruz kept driving before crashing into a fourth car on No. 19-1435 3 the south side of the street and coming to a stop near the en- trance of a parking lot. At that point, the officers parked their car behind Cruz’s Tahoe, believing that it had stalled due to the damage it had sustained during the collisions. Valadez then began getting out of the car while announcing that he was a police officer. Almost simultaneously, Cruz put his Tahoe into reverse, forc- ing Valadez back into his car just before the back of the Tahoe struck the driver’s side of the car. The collision forced the open driver’s side door closed and caused the officers’ “whole car” to “rock[].” Reyes thought that Valadez had been hit by the Tahoe and was concerned that he may have been severely injured in the seconds following the collision. Cruz then pulled forward and turned left into the parking lot. The officers followed Cruz into the parking lot on foot, wearing plain clothes, duty belts, and bulletproof police vests that displayed th