A Los Angeles Police Department officer who mistook an airsoft gun for a lethal weapon and shot into a group of teenagers will have to face Fourth Amendment claims, a federal appellate court has ruled. 

A panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed in part and affirmed in part a district court's denial of qualified immunity to LAPD officer Miguel Gutierrez, who fired into the high school boys, setting off a chain of events that led to their unwarranted detention for five hours. The judges decided that the officer's qualified immunity applied to the shots fired, remanding the case to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, but the defense did not apply to rights that were infringed after the shooting. 

"We agree with the district court that under these circumstances, Plaintiffs' continued detention for five hours—well after any probable cause would have dissipated—and the use of handcuffs throughout the duration of the detention violated Plaintiffs' clearly established Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unlawful arrest and excessive force," wrote Judge Jacqueline Nguyen of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, joined on the panel by Judges Andrew J. Kleinfeld of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and R. Guy Cole Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation.