Police seizure of guns justified by community caretaking function.

Byline: Barry Bridges

The actions of Cranston police officers in sending an apparently suicidal man to the hospital for a mental health evaluation and seizing legally possessed guns from his home did not deprive him of his Second and Fourth Amendment rights, a U.S. District Court judge has held.

The underlying events transpired when the Cranston Police Department conducted a wellness check on Edward A. Caniglia after his wife expressed alarm that, during an argument, he displayed a gun and told her to "just shoot me" because he "couldn't take it anymore."

Ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment in Caniglia's ensuing lawsuit against the city and individual officers, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. largely sided with the city and recognized the department's "community caretaking" role of protecting the health and safety of the public.

McConnell concluded that the officers had a reasonable basis for their actions at the Caniglia home, which precluded the plaintiff's Fourth Amendment claims.

And he added that just as the Second Amendment "is not implicated when the police seize a firearm during an arrest, or at a crime scene, the Second Amendment is not implicated when the police reasonably seize a gun under their well-established duties as community caretakers."

However, McConnell ruled in favor of Caniglia on his 14th Amendment due process claim, finding that the city infringed on his rights in refusing to return his property for four months and failing to provide him with any process of how to get it back after his health and safety were secured.

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"Could they have left the guns in the home pending Mr. Caniglia's clearance from Kent Hospital? Perhaps, but 'there is no requirement that officers must select the least intrusive means of fulfilling community caretaking responsibilities,'" the judge wrote.

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The 26-page decision is Caniglia v. Strom, et al., Lawyers Weekly No. 52-060-19. The full text of the ruling can be found here.

In a brief statement, Providence attorney Thomas W. Lyons III, counsel for the plaintiff, said he was disappointed with the decision, with the exception of the due process ruling, which had been expected based on McConnell's earlier holding in Richer v. Parmelee. Lyons said his client was "considering the options."

The lawyer for the city, Marc DeSisto of Providence, did not respond to a request for comments.

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