No. 22-3193 ___________________________

Jennifer Morgan-Tyra

Plaintiff - Appellant

Michael Morgan

Plaintiff

v.

City of St. Louis

Defendant

Andrei Nikolov

Defendant - Appellee ____________

Appeal from United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis ____________

Submitted: September 21, 2023 Filed: January 8, 2024 ____________ Before SHEPHERD, KELLY, and STRAS, Circuit Judges. ____________ STRAS, Circuit Judge.

While responding to a domestic-disturbance call, Officer Andrei Nikolov shot a woman who was holding a gun and shouting expletives at someone concealed from his view. The woman brought an excessive-force claim, but the district court1 dismissed it at summary judgment. In the absence of a clear legal answer to whether an officer can use deadly force in this situation, we affirm.

I.

Officer Nikolov and his partner responded to a St. Louis home after a 911 call. The dispatcher informed them that “Karla Nicholson [was] having a dispute with her . . . roommate [who] possibly ha[d] a gun and ha[d] threatened her. She [wa]s locked in her bedroom.”

The parties dispute much of what happened from there, but a few points of agreement exist. The first is that there was a second 911 call at some point: a person named “Jennifer Tyra” had called from the same location and reported that a “white female armed with a screwdriver [was] trying to attack [her]. Jennifer [wa]s armed with a gun [and had] threatened to shoot her if the female came close to her.” The parties disagree, however, about whether Officer Nikolov heard about the second 911 call.

Everyone generally agrees about what happened next. After pounding on a closed metal screen door, the officers encountered a man inside who said something along the lines of, “I tried to calm the situation down[;] they are in the back.” As they moved toward the standoff, Officer Nikolov first heard “screaming” and “swear words” and then saw Jennifer Morgan-Tyra standing in a hallway with a gun in her hands. The person on the other end of it—later identified as Nicholson—was in a

1 The Honorable Matthew T. Schelp, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Missouri.

-2- bedroom around the corner, out of Officer Nikolov’s view. Someone directed Morgan-Tyra to drop the gun, but instead of complying, she continued to shout expletives at the person in the bedroom. According to her own deposition, her “intention” was “to use [her] words to intimidate” and make the other person “believe [she] would shoot.” Where exactly she was pointing the gun, however, is disputed.

What is clear is that Officer Nikolov ended the standoff by firing at least nine shots, several of which struck Morgan-Tyra and caused severe and lasting injuries. She sued him, claiming he had used excessive force. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. After initially denying summary judgment and allowing additional discovery, the district court changed its mind and granted qualified immunity. 2 Morgan-Tyra’s position is that her excessive-force claim should have gone to a jury.

II.

We review the district court’s summary-judgment ruling de novo, viewing the record in the light most favorable to Morgan-Tyra and drawing all reasonable inferences in her favor. See N.S. ex rel. Lee v. Kan.