The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that police officers who conducted a no-knock raid on a house and injured four unarmed people were not subject to qualified immunity, a type of immunity that protects individual government officials from being sued over acts in the course of their duties.

In February 2018, the police conducted a no-knock raid at the Bangor, Pennsylvania home of Richard and Ada Anglemeyer, an elderly couple in their late 70s, who lived with their two sons and their son-in-law. The police acted on a tip that their son, Mark Anglemeyer, was engaged in the sale of methamphetamines. At the time of the raid, the police had no information suggesting that the other four members of the household were involved in the drug activity or had knowledge of it. A team of forty-three Special Emergency Response Team officers arrived at the home around 6:00 AM and entered forcibly without knocking. Mark Anglemeyer was not home at the time of the raid, but all other members of the household were present. Awoken by the commotion, the members of the household exited their bedrooms and were subsequently struck by the officers. While firearms were located in the home, all members of the household were visibly unarmed at the time of the entry.

All four suffered long-term injuries, two of which required surgery. While police reports and witness testimony conflict, the family insists that they followed all police instructions.

Following the raid, the family filed a suit in federal court alleging that the police violated their Fourth Amendment right to protection from unreasonable search and seizure, specifically with the police use of unnecessary force. Under this amendment, while police are permitted to use force as necessary, they are required to show reasonable restraint. The district court granted summary judgment to the officers, ruling that the officers had qualified immunity, and were therefore not liable to such a suit.

The family appealed to the Third Circuit, which overturned the suit on the grounds that the officers should not be granted qualified immunity. The court reasoned that officers are only eligible for qualified immunity if (1) their actions were objectively reasonable and (2) they did not violate a clearly known law or right. In this case, the court opined that the officers did not meet either of these elements:

The plaintiffs were not only plainly unarmed, substantially outnumbered, cooperative, and in their own home, but they were not suspected of any wrongdoing or facing arrest. Accordingly, any reasonable officer in our case would have known that the officers’ force was unlawful under this set of facts …

Construing the evidence in the light most favorable to each plaintiff, a reasonable jury could find that the officer who harmed each plaintiff used objectively unreasonable force. At the time of the officers’ conduct, it was clearly established that it was unlawful for the officers to inflict serious bodily harm on individuals who were plainly unarmed, substantially outnumbered by law enforcement, cooperative, not suspected of wrongdoing, and in their own home.

This decision sets a precedent on when qualified immunity applies within the Third Circuit’s jurisdiction, which spans Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey.