Dalton v. Town of Silver City, 2 F.4th 1300

Victim Nikki Bascom repeatedly reported domestic-abuse incidents (March–April 2016) involving Marcello Contreras, an SCPD officer with a prior domestic complaint and other misconduct allegations.
SCPD officers (including Chief Reynolds and Captain Villalobos) misclassified a 911 call, failed to follow domestic-violence procedures (no tracking form, no arrest/warrant pursuit, no referral of serious allegations to outside agency), and did not document or fully disclose complaints about Contreras.
Contreras was placed on administrative leave, retained firearms earlier in the day, and was not criminally investigated or arrested; Chief Reynolds also promoted Contreras days earlier.
On April 21, 2016, while on duty, Contreras followed Bascom, seized her phone, later shot and killed her, then killed himself.
Bascom’s Estate sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming Reynolds and Villalobos violated her Equal Protection rights by providing less police protection because the assailant was an SCPD officer; the district court denied the officers qualified immunity.
The Tenth Circuit affirmed the denial: accepting the district court’s factual findings, a reasonable jury could find an Equal Protection violation and that the right was clearly established.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the district-court facts state an Equal Protection violation based on disparate policing of domestic-violence victims whose assailants are police officers	Bascom was treated differently from similarly situated domestic-violence victims (94% arrest rate for non-officer suspects vs. no arrest here); SCPD policies created a facially discriminatory scheme disadvantaging victims of officer-assailants	Bascom was not similarly situated because her assailant was a police officer; differential treatment was justified by department procedures	Held: Yes. The accepted facts permit a reasonable jury to find disparate treatment and discriminatory intent (policies and practices favored officer-assailants), violating Equal Protection under rational-basis review
Whether the officers are entitled to qualified immunity because the right was not clearly established	The Tenth Circuit’s precedent (Watson; Price-Cornelison) clearly establishes it is unlawful to give less police protection to a sub-class of domestic-violence victims (e.g., those abused by officers)	No Tenth Circuit/Supreme Court case directly on point; White v. Pauly requires close factual similarity to clearly establish law	Held: No qualified immunity. Existing Tenth Circuit decisions put a reasonable officer on notice that intentionally providing lesser protection to a subclass of domestic-violence victims violates Equal Protection; denial of summary judgment affirmed

Watson v. City of Kansas City, Kan., 857 F.2d 690 (10th Cir. 1988) (police may violate Equal Protection by providing less protection to domestic-violence victims when department practices treat such victims differently)
Price-Cornelison v. Brooks, 524 F.3d 1103 (10th Cir. 2008) (refusing police protection to a subclass of domestic-violence victims—here, lesbian victims—can violate Equal Protection)
Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001) (qualified immunity framework: officials liable only for violating clearly established rights)
Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635 (1987) (a right is clearly established when its contours are sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that conduct violates that right)
Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511 (1985) (denial of qualified immunity is an appealable interlocutory order)
Brown v. Montoya, 662 F.3d 1152 (10th Cir. 2011) (adopts two-part qualified immunity test and clarifies standards for clearly established law)