Gomez v. Randall et al

Filing 177

Enter MEMORANDUM Opinion and Order Signed by the Honorable Elaine E. Bucklo on 3/3/2015. Mailed notice (jdh)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION

RAUL GOMEZ,
Plaintiff,
v.
LANEL PALMER, DWAYNE
JOHNSON, and ANDRIA BACOT,
Defendants.

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No. 11 C 1793

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
In May 2009, Illinois prisoner Raul Gomez (“Gomez”)
sustained a gunshot wound when Correctional Officer Dwayne
Johnson (“Officer Johnson”) fired a round of buckshot in Gomez’s
direction as prison guards were physically separating two
unarmed inmates who had gotten into a scuffle.
In this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Gomez alleges that
Officer Johnson used excessive force against him and that
Sergeant Lanel Palmer (“Sgt. Palmer”) and Nurse Andria Bacot
(“Nurse Bacot”) were deliberately indifferent to his injuries.
All three Defendants have moved for summary judgment.

I

deny their motions for the reasons stated below.
I.
At the summary judgment stage, I must view the record in
the light most favorable to Gomez and resolve all evidentiary

1

conflicts in his favor.

See Shields v. Ill. Dep’t of

Corrections, 746 F.3d 782, 786 (7th Cir. 2014).

It follows that

my account of the facts “is not necessarily accurate in an
objective sense but [instead] reflects the evidence through the
lens of summary judgment.”

Id.
A.

On May 20, 2009, Gomez lived in the “E House” at Stateville
Correctional Center (“Stateville”) on the ninth floor of cells.
Around 10:00 am that day, Sgt. Palmer and Correctional Officer
Troy Dunlap (“Officer Dunlap”) were escorting the fifty-six
inmates on Gomez’s floor back from the dining hall.

Gomez stood

against the railing across from his cell while other inmates
were still filing up the stairs.
While Gomez was waiting, two inmates started to fight on
the ninth floor walkway close to the stairwell.
had a weapon.

Neither inmate

Gomez was standing about ten to fifteen feet away

from the fight when it broke out.

Within three or four seconds,

Sgt. Palmer and Officer Dunlap ran up the stairs and started to
break up the fight.

Sgt. Palmer sprayed the two inmates with

mace about fifteen seconds after arriving at the scene.

As Sgt.

Palmer and Officer Dunalp were physically separating the two
inmates, Gomez heard a gunshot.

He turned to look at Officer

Johnson, who was patrolling the catwalk on the opposite wall
across from the seventh floor of cells.

2

Gomez heard several inmates curse at Officer Johnson and
ask why he had fired.

In Gomez’s opinion, Sgt. Palmer and

Officer Dunlap already had the fight under control when Officer
Johnson fired a round of buckshot from his twelve-gauge shotgun.
What transpired next is best captured in Gomez’s own words:
When [Officer Johnson] used the pump action on the
shot to put another one in the chamber we knew he was
trying to scare us or shoot again.
And we kind of
leaned back. He fired and I ducked and closed my eyes
to try to protect my eyes, and I felt an impact on my
arm.
Gomez Dep. at 41.

A buckshot pellet from Officer Johnson’s

second shot ricocheted off an unknown object and lodged in
Gomez’s upper right arm. 1

Gomez said the impact “felt like a

punch in my arm” and left a hole in his shirt.

Id. at 49.

Officer Johnson aimed his second shot in Gomez’s
direction--i.e., at an angle from the seventh floor catwalk
towards the inmates on the ninth floor walkway--rather than at a
“black box” target designed to catch warning shots and minimize
ricochet.

One of the targets was suspended from the ceiling on

the same wall as the catwalk.

After the second shot, Gomez saw

Sgt. Palmer look at Officer Johnson in disbelief as if to say,
“Why did you shoot?”

Id. at 45. 2

1

The entire incident, from the

Gomez’s cellmate and neighbor were also struck by buckshot that
produced bruising, but did not penetrate the skin.
2
Officer Johnson’s side of the story is that the fight was not
under control when he fired two warning shots into the ceiling,
not at any prisoners.
3

start of the fight until the two inmates were placed in
handcuffs, lasted about thirty-five to forty seconds.
After the fight, Gomez lifted up his shirt to inspect his
wound.

He saw “dark discoloration,” a bruise about the size of

a quarter, and a drip of blood.

Id. at 51.

The actual puncture

wound was about “the size of a big apple seed.”

Id. at 52.

Gomez showed Sgt. Palmer and Officer Dunlap his wound and
requested medical attention.

Sgt. Palmer instructed Officer

Dunlap to summon a medical technician or nurse as soon as he
finished letting the other inmates into their cells.
About five minutes later, Officer Dunlap returned to
Gomez’s cell with Nurse Bacot.

Gomez showed Nurse Bacot his arm

and told her, “I got hit when they fired the gun.”

Id. at 91.

At this point, there was still fresh blood on Gomez’s wound
trickling down his arm.

Nurse Bacot told Officer Dunlap that

Gomez needed to go to the medical unit.

Officer Dunlap

responded that Gomez could not leave because the E House was
being placed on lockdown.

Nurse Bacot did not protest or

explain to Officer Dunlap that Gomez’s situation presented a
medical emergency.

Nurse Bacot admits, however, that she can

seek clearance to transfer inmates to the medical unit at
Stateville even during a lockdown.
When Gomez asked Nurse Bacot to place a note in his file so
he could receive immediate medical attention after the lockdown,

4

she responded, “I am not going to write shit.”

Id. at 16.

Gomez then asked Nurse Bacot to clean his arm.

She conferred

with Officer Dunlap, but did not respond to Gomez’s request.
Gomez then asked Nurse Bacot to provide him with Bacitracin
ointment and a Band-Aid so he could treat his own wound.

Nurse

Bacot agreed, but never returned to Gomez’s cell with any
medical supplies. 3
Sgt. Palmer did a walk through on the ninth floor around
2:00 pm, nearly four hours after the shooting incident.

Gomez

asked Sgt. Palmer why he had not received any medical supplies
to treat his injury.

Sgt. Palmer promised to check with the

medical unit, but never followed up with Gomez.

When Sgt.

Palmer spoke with an investigator about three weeks after the
incident, he stated that “between tickets, paperwork, feeding
etc., 2:30 pm [the end of his shift] came fast and he (Palmer)
was unable to check with Gomez.”

Pl.’s Ex. 25.

Around 6:00 pm, Nurse Bacot returned to the ninth floor to
pass out medications.

Gomez asked Nurse Bacot why he had not

received any medical treatment or supplies.

3

She said, “Oh, you

Nurse Bacot’s side of the story is that Gomez had only a
“superficial scratch” on his arm, for which she gave him
Bacitracin and a Band-Aid from her medical kit. Bacot Dep. at
98-100. After leaving the ninth floor, Nurse Bacot allegedly
explained to Sgt. Palmer how she had treated Gomez’s injuries.
Id. at 101. According to Nurse Bacot, Gomez did not ask for
treatment in the medical unit or complain about pain. Id. at
102, 112.
5

will be alright,” and continued delivering medications.
Dep. at 17.

Gomez

As Nurse Bacot was about to leave the ninth floor,

Gomez asked for her full name given that she was refusing to
treat his injury.

She mumbled something inaudible, laughed, and

walked away.
When Gomez realized he was not going to receive any medical
treatment, he took matters into his own hands:
I started cleaning out my own arm and that’s when I
noticed that there was something in it.
All of this
time I didn’t think there was anything in my arm.
I
thought it was just swelling and a puncture wound.
When I started to clean it out with soap and water
over my sink, I went back to the light, turned on the
light and I started pushing in on it and everything
and I seen [sic] a piece of metal.
And I told my
celly, man, I got something in my arm. So I extracted
it with my fingernails and cleaned it out more.
Put
that down, grabbed my sheet, ripped a piece off of it
and put a bandage on it. And then I started to write
[an] emergency grievance to the Warden.
Id. at 59.

Gomez did not tell Sgt. Palmer, Officer Dunlap, or

Nurse Bacot that he had extracted a piece of metal from his
gunshot wound.
In his emergency grievance submitted on May 16, Gomez said
he had been shot by an unidentified correctional officer “for no
reason” and then denied medical treatment.

Pl.’s Ex. 18.

Gomez

reported that “the catwalk [officer] shot in a crowd of inmates,
whom [sic] had nothing to do with the fight.”

Id.

In the

immediate aftermath of the shooting, Gomez showed Officer Dunlap
and an unidentified nurse “a large area of bruises [with] a

6

medium amount of blood spilling from the wounds.”

When the

nurse returned to the ninth floor about six hours later, Gomez
wrote, “I explained that I was in pain and I showed her the
bleeding gunshot wounds.

She stated that she wanted to help me,

but she was told by the staff security not to document any
medical treatment for gunshot wounds from any of the inmates.
So she refused to treat me and she walked away from my cell.”
Id.

Gomez complained that his wounds were becoming infected as

he sat in his cell “in pain and bleeding with a torn sheet as a
bandage.”

Id.

On May 17, 2009, one day after the shooting, Gomez asked
Sgt. Palmer why he had not received any medical supplies.
Palmer shrugged off Gomez’s inquiry.

Sgt.

Other than this exchange,

Gomez does not recall whether he sought additional medical
attention in the three days after sustaining a gunshot wound.
During this period, Gomez’s wound remained bruised and burned
when he ran water over it.

Although Gomez could still use his

right arm, he experienced more pain when doing so and could not
sleep on his right side.
Gomez has also submitted an expert report from Dr. Edward
Glaser, M.D., (“Dr. Glaser”) a board certified physician in
investigational pain management.

In Dr. Glaser’s opinion, Gomez

experienced unnecessary pain on May 16 when he removed the
buckshot pellet in his arm without the benefit of a local

7

anesthetic.

Glaser Dep. at 79.

Gomez also faced an increased

risk of contracting tetanus and other infections while his wound
remained untreated.

Id. at 57.

On May 20, 2009, four days after the shooting incident,
Gomez received treatment from Dr. Partha Ghosh (“Dr. Ghosh”),
the Medical Director at Stateville.

Two officers from internal

affairs were present at Gomez’s appointment with Dr. Ghosh.
Gomez noticed that the two officers had a copy of his emergency
grievance.

When Gomez explained that he had suffered a gunshot

wound four days earlier, Dr. Ghosh asked why he had not come to
the medical unit immediately.

Gomez responded that Officer

Dunlap blocked him from receiving treatment in the medical unit
because of the lockdown.
an emergency.
possible.”

Dr. Ghosh said, “Well, this is kind of

You are supposed to be down here as soon as

Gomez Dep. at 18.

Gomez said it was not his call

and gestured towards the internal affairs officers in the room.
Dr. Ghosh cleaned Gomez’s arm, gave him a tetanus shot, and
prescribed an antibiotic.

When Dr. Ghosh asked whether there

was anything in Gomez’s arm, Gomez showed him the pellet he had
removed from his arm on the night of the incident.

The internal

affairs officers took a picture of Gomez’s arm and confiscated
the pellet and makeshift bandage.

Dr. Ghosh applied a proper

bandage to Gomez’s arm and ordered an x-ray.

Gomez saw Nurse

Bacot while he was waiting to be x-rayed a few days after his

8

appointment with Dr. Ghosh.

She gave Gomez a dirty look and

accused him of lying about her.

Gomez responded, “I ain’t

lying, you just didn’t want to do your job.”

Id. at 103.

This

was Gomez’s last interaction with Nurse Bacot.
On May 21, 2009, one day after his appointment with Dr.
Ghosh, Gomez received notice that his emergency grievance had
been denied because he already received medical treatment.
Gomez forwarded his grievance to a counselor, who denied it as
moot on June 8, 2009.

A grievance officer denied Gomez’s next

appeal on July 9, 2009 because she could not “substantiate any
staff misconduct.”

Pl.’s Ex. 19.

On July 29, 2009, Gomez

appealed his grievance to the Director of the Illinois
Department of Corrections (“IDOC”).

Id.

On October 20, 2009, the Administrative Review Board
(“ARB”) recommended to the IDOC Director that Gomez’s grievance
should be denied for the following reason:
This office notes your allegations were referred to
statewide
investigations.
Investigator
[Andrew]
Pronger
conducted
the
interviews
and
conducted
forensic testing with Illinois State Police.
Pronger
concluded you did not present credible evidence of
being shot.
Photographs of your clothing and alleged
gunshot wound were not consistent with previous
evidence where inmates were struck by a pellet from a
shotgun discharge.
In addition, it is noted you
stated to Pronger during an interview, “I just wanted
some Neosporin and a bandaid.”
Pl.’s Ex. 20.

The IDOC Director adopted the ARB’s

recommendation and denied Gomez’s grievance on November 3, 2009,

9

which marked the end of the administrative process.

See Burrell

v. Powers, 431 F.3d 282, 284 (7th Cir. 2005) (explaining IDOC’s
three-step grievance procedure). 4
B.
As a preliminary matter, Nurse Bacot argues that Gomez did
not sue her within the two-year limitations period for Section
1983 claims in Illinois.

See Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 387

(2007).
The statute of limitations started running when the IDOC
denied Gomez’s grievance on November 3, 2009.

See Walker v.

Sheahan, 526 F.3d 973, 978 (7th Cir. 2008) (“[T]he limitations
period is tolled while a prisoner completes the administrative
grievance process.”); see also 20 Ill. Admin. Code § 504.850(f)
(stating that IDOC Director renders “the final determination of
a grievance”).
On March 15, 2011, Gomez filed a pro se complaint under 42
U.S.C. § 1983 against the IDOC Director, the Stateville Warden,
Sgt. Palmer, Officer Dunlap, “John Doe (catwalk),” and “Jane Doe
Med. Tech.”

The naming of John and Jane Doe defendants does not

4

I have already rejected Nurse Bacot’s argument that Gomez
failed to exhaust his administrative remedies because he did not
identify her by name in his grievance. See Dkt. No. 95 (citing
Jones v. Block, 549 U.S. 199, 217 (2007); Maddox v. Love, 655
F.3d 709, 721 (7th Cir. 2011)). Despite her urging, I will not
revisit this issue at the summary judgment stage.
10

toll the statute of limitations.

See Baskin v. City of Des

Plaines, 138 F.3d 701, 704 (7th Cir. 1998).
On August 9, 2011, with 87 days left on the statute of
limitations, Judge Shadur dismissed Gomez’s case based on
appointed counsel’s representations that the complaint failed to
state any plausible claims and was barred by the statute of
limitations.

See Dkt. No. 14.

notice of appeal.

Gomez filed a timely pro se

During his appeal, Gomez could not conduct

discovery or amend his complaint in the district court.

See

Aaron v. Mahl, 550 F.3d 659, 667 (7th Cir. 2008) (“[A] party's
filing of a notice of appeal divests the district court of
jurisdiction over those aspects of the case involved in the
appeal.”).

Nurse Bacot has not cited any authority for the

proposition that the two-year statute of limitations continued
to run during Gomez’s appeal.
On June 5, 2012, the Seventh Circuit issued a mandate
reinstating Gomez’s excessive force claim against “John Doe
(catwalk)”; his deliberate indifference claims against Sgt.
Palmer and “Jane Doe Med. Tech.”; and his First Amendment
retaliation claim.
2012).

See Gomez v. Randle, 680 F.3d 859 (7th Cir.

Gomez’s case was reassigned to me on remand with 87 days

left on the statute of limitations.
On August 28, 2012, only three days before the statute of
limitations was set to expire, Gomez filed a first amended

11

complaint identifying Officer Johnson and Nurse Bacot by name
for the first time.

See Dkt. No. 41.

Therefore, Gomez’s claims

are timely even without considering his equitable tolling
arguments.
After voluntarily dismissing his retaliation claim, Gomez
filed a second amended complaint in which he asserted an
excessive force claim against Officer Johnson (Count I) and a
deliberate indifference claim against Sgt. Palmer and Nurse
Bacot (Count II).

See Dkt. No. 138.

All three Defendants have

moved for summary judgment.
II.
Summary judgment is appropriate “if the movant shows that
there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the
movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”
Civ. P. 56(a).

Fed. R.

“The evidence of the non-movant is to be

believed, and all justifiable inferences are to be drawn in his
favor.”

Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255

(1986).

“[S]ummary will not lie if...the evidence is such that

a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving
party.”

Id. at 248.
A.

I start with Gomez’s claim that Officer Johnson used
excessive force against him in violation of the Eighth
Amendment.

12

“[W]henever prison officials stand accused of using
excessive physical force in violation of the Cruel and Unusual
Punishments Clause, the core judicial inquiry is that set out in
Whitley [v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312 (1986)]: whether force was
applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore
discipline, or maliciously and sadistically to cause harm.”
Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 6-7 (1992).

“[T]he extent of

injury suffered by an inmate is one factor that may suggest
‘whether the use of force could plausibly have been thought
necessary’ in a particular situation.”
Whitley, 475 U.S. at 321).

Id. at 7 (quoting

“Injury and force, however, are only

imperfectly correlated, and it is the latter that ultimately
counts.”

Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34, 38 (2010).

“In

determining whether the use of force was wanton and unnecessary,
it may also be proper to evaluate the need for application of
force, the relationship between that need and the amount of
force used, the threat ‘reasonably perceived by the responsible
officials,’ and ‘any efforts made to temper the severity of a
forceful response.’”

Hudson, 503 U.S. at 7 (quoting Whitley,

475 U.S. at 321).
The Seventh Circuit has distilled these cases into a twopart inquiry: (1) “whether the force that [Gomez] describes rose
above the de minimis level” and (2) “whether the actions of
[Officer Johnson] were designed expressly for the purpose of

13

punishing or humiliating [Gomez].”
496, 504 (7th Cir. 2004).

Filmore v. Page, 358 F.3d

In other words, Gomez’s burden at the

summary judgment stage is to present “evidence that ‘will
support a reliable inference of wantonness in the infliction of
pain.’”

Id. (quoting Whitley, 475 U.S. at 322).

Under these standards, Gomez is entitled to a trial.

The

alleged use of force in this case--firing buckshot from a
twelve-gauge shotgun--is plainly more than a de minimis use of
force.

As for whether Officer Johnson fired in a good faith

effort to restore order or wantonly, there are factual disputes
about where he aimed and why he fired.

I cannot grant summary

judgment when such pivotal factual questions are genuinely in
dispute.

See Lee v. Anderson, No. 93 C 5654, 1997 WL 106256

(N.D. Ill. Feb. 12, 1997) (Holderman, J.) (denying motion for
summary judgment on prisoner excessive force claim because of
factual disputes over where prison guard aimed his gun and
whether it was necessary to shoot); Sanchez v. O’Leary, 90 C
6271, 1993 WL 96117 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 1, 1993) (Moran, J.) (same);
White v. McEwing, No. 90 C 1463, 1991 WL 127579 (N.D. Ill. July
5, 1991) (Hart, J.) (same); cf. Fields v. Millan, No. 11-856GPM, 2013 WL 6182928, at *4 (S.D. Ill. Nov. 26, 2013) (Murphy,
J.) (granting summary judgment to prison guard who, at worst,
“was negligent (or even grossly negligent) in failing to line-up
his shot in order to hit the shot board”).

14

Officer Johnson says that Sgt. Palmer and Officer Dunlap
did not have the fight under control when he fired warning shots
into the ceiling.

In contrast, Gomez says the fight was

effectively over when Officer Johnson fired his second warning
shot in the direction of inmates who were not involved in the
fight.

Gomez’s claim does not turn on whether Officer Johnson

aimed directly at him. 5

At this stage, the evidence suggests

that Officer Johnson fired a second shot at Gomez and other
inmates who were cursing at him and questioning why he had fired
the first shot.
In sum, accepting Gomez’s testimony as true, a jury could
find that Officer Johnson’s use of force was “wanton and
unnecessary” because no reasonable prison official in his
position would have perceived a need to shoot at inmates who
were not involved in a skirmish between two unarmed inmates that
was already under control.

Hudson, 503 U.S. at 7.

It follows

that Officer Johnson is not entitled to summary judgment on
Gomez’s excessive force claim.
B.
5

See Robins v. Meecham, 60 F.3d 1436, 1440 (9th Cir. 1995)
(“Whom the prison officials shot...is not relevant--what is
relevant is that they fired a shotgun blast at an inmate. It is
this conduct that the Eighth Amendment is designed to
restrain.”); see also Duran v. Sirgedas, 240 Fed. App’x 104, 112
(7th Cir. 2007) (“[I]f a police officer intends to inflict
injury, without justification, the fact that the officer
intentionally targets a large group of individuals, as opposed
to a specific individual, is irrelevant.”).
15

Gomez’s denial of medical care claim against Sgt. Palmer
and Nurse Bacot has objective and subjective components.

Gomez

must present evidence from which a jury could find that (1) his
gunshot wound was an objectively serious medical condition and
(2) Sgt. Palmer and Nurse Bacot were deliberately indifferent to
his injuries.

Greeno v. Daley, 414 F.3d 645, 653 (7th Cir.

2005) (citing Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994)).
1.
“A serious medical condition is one that has been diagnosed
by a physician as mandating treatment or one that is so obvious
that even a lay person would perceive the need for a doctor's
attention.”

Id.

Gomez says that his gunshot wound was bruised and bleeding
when he showed it to Sgt. Palmer and Nurse Bacot.

A jury need

not accept Nurse Bacot’s competing description of the wound as a
“superficial scratch.”

Bacot Dep. at 98.

It is hard to imagine

a medical condition whose seriousness would be more obvious-even to a layperson--than a bleeding gunshot wound.

See Cooper

v. Casey, 97 F.3d 914, 917 (7th Cir. 1996) (noting that “a
bruised and battered physical appearance” is an objective
injury).
Gomez has also presented evidence that he experienced
unnecessary pain and an increased risk of infection because of
the delay in treating his wound.

16

See Williams v. Liefer, 491

F.3d 710, 714-15 (7th Cir. 2007) (holding that in cases of
delayed medical treatment, prisoners must present “verifying
medical evidence” that delay “caused some degree of harm”); see
also Jackson v. Pollion, 733 F.3d 786, 790 (7th Cir. 2013)
(noting that cognizable harms from delayed treatment include
actual injury and “serious risk of injury”).

Here, Gomez has

presented an expert report stating that he experienced
unnecessary pain when he was forced to extract the buckshot
pellet from his arm without a local anesthetic and faced an
increased risk of infection while his wound remained untreated.
This report constitutes “verifying medical evidence” from which
a jury could find that Gomez suffered harm because of the fourday delay in treating his gunshot wound.

See Berry v. Peterman,

604 F.3d 435, 440 (7th Cir. 2010) (holding that pain and risk of
infection are objectively serious medical conditions).
In short, on the evidence presented, a jury could
reasonably find that Gomez’s gunshot wound and the resulting
pain and risk of infection were objectively serious medical
conditions.
2.
Next, Gomez must show that Sgt. Palmer and Nurse Bacot were
deliberately indifferent to his medical condition.
“[A] prison official cannot be found liable under the
Eighth Amendment for denying an inmate humane conditions of

17

confinement unless the official knows of and disregards an
excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must
both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn
that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also
draw the inference.”

Farmer, 511 U.S. 837.

“[A] factfinder may

conclude that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from
the very fact that the risk was obvious.”

Id. at 842 (internal

citation omitted).
Here, Gomez told Sgt. Palmer and Nurse Bacot that he had
been shot and showed them his wound while it was still bleeding.
The risk to Gomez’s health from a gunshot wound was obvious even
if neither Sgt. Palmer nor Nurse Bacot knew that a buckshot
pellet had lodged in his arm.

Indeed, upon examining Gomez in

the medical unit four days after the shooting, Dr. Ghosh
remarked that Gomez should have received immediate medical
attention.

The real question is whether a jury could find that

Sgt. Palmer and Nurse Bacot, respectively, disregarded the known
or obvious risk to Gomez’s health.
Sgt. Palmer seeks summary judgment based on the line of
cases holding that “if a prisoner is under the care of medical
experts, a non-medical prison official will generally be
justified in believing that the prisoner is in capable hands.”
Arnett v. Webster, 658 F.3d 742, 755 (7th Cir. 2011) (citing
Greeno, 414 F.3d at 656).

It is undisputed that Sgt. Palmer

18

dispatched Officer Dunlap and Nurse Bacot to check on Gomez’s
injuries immediately after the shooting incident.

Had no

further information come to Sgt. Palmer’s attention, he would
have been justified in believing that Gomez was receiving
adequate care from medical personnel.

Gomez, however, notified

Sgt. Palmer about four hours after the shooting that he had not
received any medical supplies to treat his injury.

Although

Sgt. Palmer said he would check with the medical unit, there is
no evidence that he did anything to address Gomez’s concerns.
In fact, Sgt. Palmer later told an investigator that he was too
busy with end-of-shift work to follow up with Gomez.

A

reasonable jury could conclude from these facts that Sgt. Palmer
was deliberately indifferent to the medical needs of an inmate
whose gunshot wound remained untreated four hours after the
incident.

See Hayes v. Snyder, 546 F.3d 516, 527 (7th Cir.

2008) (“[N]onmedical officials can ‘be chargeable with the
Eighth Amendment scienter requirement of deliberate
indifference’ where they have ‘a reason to believe (or actual
knowledge) that prison doctors or their assistants are
mistreating (or not treating) a prisoner.’” (quoting Spruill v.
Gillis, 372 F.3d 218, 236 (3d Cir. 2004)).
As for Nurse Bacot, there is widely conflicting testimony
about how she responded to Gomez’s injuries.

Gomez’s side of

the story, which controls my analysis at the summary judgment

19

stage, is that Nurse Bacot initially wanted to treat him in the
medical unit, but failed to seek clearance from prison officials
to transport him during the lockdown.

When Gomez asked Nurse

Bacot to document his injuries, she said, “I am not going to
write shit.”

Gomez Dep. at 16.

She agreed to bring Gomez

ointment and a bandage, but never followed through on her
promise.

Gomez inquired again when he saw Nurse Bacot later in

the evening.

She laughed and said Gomez was going to be fine.

In his grievance, Gomez added that Nurse Bacot said she wanted
to treat him, but had been instructed “not to document any
medical treatment for gunshot wounds from any of the inmates.”
Pl.’s Ex. 18.

On these facts, a jury could find that Nurse

Bacot’s failure or refusal to provide Gomez with any medical
treatment for a bleeding gunshot wound was “so plainly
inappropriate as to permit the inference that the defendants
intentionally or recklessly disregarded his needs.”

Hayes, 546

F.3d at 524.
III.
Defendants’ motions for summary judgment are DENIED for the
reasons stated above.

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ENTER ORDER:

_____________________________
Elaine E. Bucklo
United States District Judge

Dated: March 3, 2015

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