Roy Scott called the police early in the morning on March 3, 2019, reporting that multiple assailants were outside his apartment, one armed with a saw. Officers from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) responded. LVMPD dispatch notified the officers that Scott appeared to be mentally ill. Upon officers’ arrival, it was apparent that Scott was “distressed and hallucinating.” When officers knocked on his door, Scott yelled for them to “break the door down,” while claiming there were people inside his apartment. The conversation between the officers, as recorded on their bodycams, reflected the fact that they were well aware Scott was mentally ill.  

Believing there was no one else inside with Scott, the officers continued to knock, trying to convince him to open the door. After about seven minutes and numerous pleas from the officers, Scott opened the door, holding a metal pipe at his side. As the officers backed away from the entrance and descended the stairs, Scott followed. When told to drop the pipe, he readily complied. An obviously disoriented Scott asked twice: “What am I supposed to do?”  

Told to stand near a wall at the base of the stairs, Scott did so. Asked if he had any other weapons, Scott produced a knife from his front pants pocket. Telling the officers that he was sorry, he handed the knife to one of the officers, handle-side out, without making any threatening gestures. Scott complained that the flashlights the officers were using bothered him, telling them he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He asked twice: “Can you just put me in the car, please?” Asked about the pipe and the knife he had already relinquished, Scott explained, “I think people are after me.”  

The officers concluded that Scott was in “some sort of distress” and that he met the qualifications for a medical hold for his mental health and safety. However, when told to face the wall, Scott replied; “I’m paranoid, I can’t turn around.” When the officers tried to convince him they were there to help him, Scott repeatedly responded that he was “not fine.” The officers then approached him and grabbed his arms. As Scott repeatedly pleaded in a distressed voice, “please,” and “what are you doing?” the officers pulled him to the ground. As they tried to handcuff him, Scott screamed and struggled, pleading with the officers to leave him alone.  

The officers rolled Scott onto his stomach with his hands restrained behind his back. In this position, one of the officers put his bodyweight on Scott’s back and neck for about two minutes as another put his weight on his legs, restraining Scott’s lower body. Scott’s pleas turned increasingly incoherent and breathless as the officers remained on top of him. Upon getting Scott handcuffed, the officers attempted to roll him onto his side.  

His face bloodied from being in contact with the ground, Scott had stopped yelling and thrashing and failed to respond when the officers tried to revive him. Paramedics were called. Scott, however, was pronounced dead after the paramedics removed him from the scene.  

The plaintiffs’ expert later testified that Scott had died from “restraint asphyxia.” Scott’s daughter, Rochelle Scott, as co-special administrator of his estate, sued the officers and the LVMPD in federal court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging (1) a violation of Scott’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force and (2) Rochelle Scott’s Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process right to familial association, among other claims. The trail court dismissed the civil defendants’ motion for summary judgment to dismiss the case. The defendants appealed.