Defense

Points of law:
What Officer Christensen did was 
   not excessive force
   not unprovoked
   not unjustified
   not unreasonable


The Plaintiff claims that the 3D gun (which was made to look like a real gun) was not a threat to anyone.   However,  people have threatened others with fake guns.  When a person sees something that looks like a gun and does not know that it is non-functional, that person could reasonably feel threatened, especially when the gun is somewhere it should not be. 


There were other causes that led Savea Tuvale to leave Emigration.  He had been bullied and the bullying had gotten much worse, much more threatening. 


Savea Tuvale is over the age of 16 and did pose a threat according to the information that Officer Christensen had.

must show "a continuing, persistent, and widespread practice of unconstitutional misconduct by the entity’s employees;"  pg. 80  --  2 of 2 in BestLaw

Also
To prove actual causation, the plaintiff must show that “but for” the defendant’s actions, the alleged injury would not have occurred. 
Plaintiff claims that part of the injury to Savea is his loss of educational opportunities avaiable in Emigration --  He didn't acutally decide to leave until after the increased bullying incidents. 
 [It was not Officer Christensen's actions that caused the bullying to increase -- it was Savea's choice to bring a gun to school.-- added to a bias already present in parts of the community against so-called "outsiders."  Neither of those things were caused or contributed to by the Emigration Police Department.] 

To prove proximate causation, the plaintiff must show that its alleged injury was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s actions. The plaintiff need not prove that the defendant actually foresaw the alleged injury as a consequence of its actions; rather, the plaintiff need only show that a reasonable person in the same situation would have foreseen the alleged injury as a consequence of her actions.

[