A homeless veteran arrested for panhandling—and whose service dog was tased by law enforcement—can move forward with his lawsuit against police and the city, a federal court ruled this week.
Apart from the individual implications, the case also raises broader questions about the constitutionality of anti-panhandling ordinances, which have suffered defeats in various courts in recent years.
In October 2021, law enforcement in Gastonia, North Carolina, arrived at an intersection where Joshua Rohrer was standing on a median after a 911 caller phoned in to report Rohrer was “using [his] dog to make people feel sorry” for him. An officer requested backup from the Gastonia Police Department (GPD), and the scene quickly became somewhat of a circus, with several patrol cars and a slew of officers dispatched to address an alleged panhandler.
An officer demanded to see Rohrer’s identification, after which he furnished his Veteran ID card. Police said that did not suffice, promptly arresting him and ultimately booking him for solicitation and resisting arrest. (You can watch the bodycam footage here and decide for yourself if he resisted arrest.)
During that interaction, an officer tased Rohrer’s service dog, Sunshine, who ran off and was later hit by a car, killing her.
The government would ultimately drop the charges against Rohrer. But even after the ordeal, law enforcement has continued to subject him “to a relentless campaign of harassment” according to his complaint against the City of Gastonia and several officers with the GPD. It alleges violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights, including for excessive force and the unreasonable seizure of his service animal.
Rohrer’s complaint also notes that the GPD has posted “hundreds of statements that belittle and disparage Mr. Rohrer and spread false and misleading information about the incident” on social media.
“You also know that two grand juries supported the charges and that Mr Rohrer and his private legal team could have challenged the charges in court but that’s not what they chose to do now was it?”the city posted on its official GPD page. “Instead they accepted the plea deal that was offered to him. Perhaps to avoid having an actual court date where evidence and testimony would have been presented. Who knows why they chose to accept the deal offered.” Rohrer did not, in fact, plead guilty to anything tied to the October arrest.
His suit this week survived the government’s attempt to have it dismissed. The officers involved are not entitled to qualified immunity, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina ruled, depriving police of the legal protection that prevents plaintiffs like Rohrer from suing if they cannot prove the government’s alleged misconduct was “clearly established” as unconstitutional at the time of the offense.
Nor is the city of Gastonia entitled to protection under the Monell doctrine, the court said, which shields municipalities from such suits unless a plaintiff can sufficiently allege that the misconduct was a result of an official government policy, custom, practice, or lack of training. According to Rohrer’s complaint, the city of Gastonia “aggressively arrests and seeks prolonged detention” for homeless people over “trivial or fabricated offenses.” (Though qualified immunity has commanded most of the attention in the national dialogue around such issues, Monell in many ways can be even more difficult to overcome.)
Whether or not Gastonia’s ordinances against panhandling are themselves unconstitutional is an open question. Similar laws have failed to withstand scrutiny when they are found to be content-based. A prohibition against asking for donations is a prohibition against a very particular type of speech, making it difficult to square with the First Amendment. Though there have been many such cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit just this year struck down Alabama’s anti-panhandling laws and confirmed that begging is, in fact, protected speech.
Had that been the case in Gastonia, the confrontation with Rohrer—who struggles with service-related post-traumatic stress disorder—over his alleged panhandling would likely never have happened. And his dog, in that case, might still be alive.
