Appeals Court Reverses on Immunity After Video Contradicts Plaintiff’s Account: Walsh v. Hackett (AC 25-P-481, September 29, 2026)

On April 26, 2018, Plymouth police responded to a frantic call from Sarah Gardner. Her husband had fired at least two shots through the windshield of her car while she and their daughter were packing it, shouting that it was his night to die. When officers arrived at the suburban home, Michael Paul Walsh came out with a handgun and fired. The officers returned fire. Walsh retreated inside, then emerged again, fired a shot toward the three police cruisers parked at the end of his driveway, and ran across his lawn. The officers kept shooting until he fell. The whole encounter, from Walsh stepping out his front door the second time to the final shot, lasted eight seconds.

Walsh and Gardner sued the four responding officers for civil rights violations, assault and battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The officers moved for summary judgment on grounds of qualified and common-law immunity. A Superior Court judge denied the motion, declining to consider video footage from the plaintiffs’ own home surveillance cameras because portions of the incident were not recorded. The judge found that critical facts were in dispute, including whether Walsh had shot at the officers at all. The officers appealed.

The Appeals Court reversed. Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice Ditkoff held that the officers are entitled to immunity from suit, not merely from liability, and that their interlocutory appeal was proper. On the merits, the court ruled that where video evidence blatantly contradicts a plaintiff’s testimony, summary judgment may be granted even when the plaintiff tells a different story. Here, the surveillance footage showed Walsh firing his handgun in the direction of the officers, and no reasonable jury could credit his claim that he was shot first and his gun discharged reflexively into the ground.

The Facts

The record includes two surveillance systems. The first, a NETGEAR/Arlo motion-activated camera, captured Walsh firing at least two shots through Gardner’s car windshield. It did not capture the initial confrontation with police. A forensic examination revealed that video clips were missing; anyone with the username and password could delete footage with no record being left. The second system, a Ring Doorbell camera, recorded the climactic moments.

Walsh testified that when officers arrived, he exited the front door and shot a round of bullets straight up in the air. He said he was then shot in the head and went back inside. Officers returned fire at the front door. He came out a second time, was shot in the chest, and his gun discharged into the ground out of reflex. He put his arm out to surrender, but the officers kept shooting, so he jumped to the ground. Even after he was down, he said, the officers continued firing.

Officer Thomas Kelly recalled that Walsh’s first shot was in the direction of the officers and struck a police vehicle. Officer David Lis remembered Walsh reaching at least the walkway and firing one shot. Officer Robert Hackett heard a bang bang and saw the front door shut.

The Ring Doorbell footage tells a different story for the second encounter. Walsh stepped down from the front stoop with his right arm raised to shoulder height, pointing toward the three cruisers. Within one second, as he walked toward his driveway, he fired. A puff of smoke expelled from the area of his right hand. Responding gunshots immediately sounded. Walsh veered left onto his lawn and started running. Three seconds in, his back was to the cruisers. He fell at five seconds and rolled onto his back at six. At seven seconds, an officer yelled, “Hold your fire.” Less than one second later, one final shot is heard. There is no indication that the final shot hit Walsh. Between the two encounters, the officers collectively fired forty-nine rounds.

Walsh was seriously injured: left shoulder, left bicep, left chest, right arm, left back, left buttocks, and staples to the skull. Once he was no longer a threat, the officers immediately began rendering medical assistance.

Jurisdiction Over an Interlocutory Appeal

Ordinarily, appellate review is available only after final judgment. But qualified and common-law immunity protect public officials from suit, not merely from liability. If officers must wait until after trial to vindicate that right, the protection is lost. The Appeals Court applied the doctrine of present execution, which permits immediate review where an interlocutory order will interfere with rights that cannot be remedied on appeal and the order is collateral to the underlying dispute.

Because the officers claim immunity from the burden of litigation itself, and because the immunity question is conceptually distinct from whether Walsh’s rights were violated, the denial of summary judgment is final for purposes of appellate review. The court also had jurisdiction over the derivative loss of consortium claim.

Summary Judgment and Contradictory Video

The Superior Court judge declined to consider the video footage because portions of it were allegedly deleted and it did not fully reflect the entire incident. That was error. The missing footage covered the initial confrontation, and the court accepted Walsh’s version of those unrecorded events as true. But the Ring Doorbell recording captured the critical moment: Walsh exiting his home a second time, arm raised, firing toward the police.

The Appeals Court applied the rule from Scott v. Harris, a 2007 Supreme Court decision holding that when a plaintiff’s testimony is blatantly contradicted by video evidence, so that no reasonable jury could believe it, a court should not adopt that version of the facts for summary judgment. Walsh testified that he was shot in the chest and his gun went off into the ground. The video shows his arm raised, a puff of smoke from his hand at shoulder height, and the shot fired within one second of stepping outside. His hand was not pointed down. His arm and the gun at the end of it were aimed in the direction of the police cruisers.

The court refused to ignore what the video so plainly showed. It noted that the footage was controlled by Walsh and Gardner, and only they (or someone with their username and password) could have deleted clips. If the officers had selectively deleted or altered footage, the analysis would be very different. But here, the video blatantly contradicted Walsh’s account, and the court viewed the facts in the light depicted by the recording.

Qualified Immunity

Qualified immunity shields government officials unless they violated clearly established law that no reasonable officer could have thought lawful. The first question is whether the facts make out a constitutional violation. The critical issue is whether the officers employed unreasonable force under the circumstances.

The court held that the use of deadly force was objectively reasonable. Officers arrived to investigate a reported shooting. Walsh had fired at his wife’s car. When they confronted him, he fired his gun (whether into the air or toward them). He retreated inside while officers returned fire. He then re-emerged and fired in the direction of the police. The video shows this second shot was aimed toward the cruisers, not into the ground.

An objectively reasonable officer could have determined that Walsh, who was shooting live ammunition in a suburban neighborhood while being confronted by police, posed an immediate threat to the safety of the officers and others. A reasonable officer is not required to wait until that officer or another is actually shot to employ deadly force. When an individual is brandishing and using a firearm that could be turned on officers in less than one second, the threat is immediate.

The encounter unfolded in seconds. Officers did not have several minutes to observe and assess. They had to make split-second judgments in circumstances that were tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving. From the moment Walsh stepped out the front door the second time to the final shot, eight seconds elapsed. Officers ceased firing within one second after the command to hold fire.

Walsh argued that it was unreasonable to continue firing after the cease-fire order. But the video shows only one shot after that command, less than one second later. The court also rejected Walsh’s contention that the officers should have provided mental health intervention instead of using force. Walsh was not yet in custody when he was shot, and once subdued, officers immediately rendered aid.

Because no constitutional violation occurred, the court did not reach the second prong of the qualified immunity analysis (whether the right was clearly established). The officers are entitled to qualified immunity on the MCRA claim as well, since the same standard applies.

Common-Law Immunity

Under Massachusetts common law, a public official exercising judgment and discretion is not liable for negligence or other error if the official acted in good faith, without malice, and without corruption. There is a strong presumption in favor of the honesty and sufficiency of the motives of public officers.

Walsh argued that the officers acted in bad faith and with malice because they deployed semi-automatic rifles knowing he suffered from mental illness, and because Officer Hackett allegedly said after the shooting, “This is the fucking asshole who filed an internal affairs complaint against me.” (Walsh had filed internal affairs complaints against Hackett and Lis.)

The court found these allegations generalized and conclusory. The officers were exercising their official discretion in responding to an armed, threatening suspect. They were using weapons issued to them by the Plymouth police department as duty weapons. Captain John Rogers testified that officers were required to carry a long gun and could choose to carry an AR-15 rifle. Although a pistol has more limited magazine capacity than a rifle, any firearm can cause death or serious bodily harm. No facts supported an inference that the officers used these weapons for any purpose other than law enforcement.

As for the alleged statement about the internal affairs complaint, even accepting it as true, none of the facts leading up to that moment showed that Hackett’s behavior was motivated by anything other than Walsh’s actions in firing toward the officers. The plaintiff failed to overcome the presumption that the officers acted in good faith.

Why It Matters

The decision clarifies that Massachusetts courts will follow Scott v. Harris in granting summary judgment where video evidence blatantly contradicts a plaintiff’s testimony. Trial courts may not ignore video footage on the theory that some portions of an incident were not recorded. If the recorded portions directly refute the plaintiff’s version, those portions control.

The ruling also reaffirms that qualified and common-law immunity protect officers from the burden of trial itself, not merely from liability. Officers who must defend a lawsuit through trial and then appeal have already lost the very protection immunity was designed to provide. Interlocutory appeals are proper and necessary in that circumstance.

On the merits, the decision gives officers substantial protection when responding to armed suspects who fire weapons in their direction, even if the suspect claims he was firing into the air or into the ground. Officers are not required to wait until they are shot to return fire, and they are not required to perfectly calibrate the amount of force in a seconds-long encounter. The fact that multiple officers fired supports the objective reasonableness of the decision to use force. Allegations of bad faith must be supported by specific facts, not conclusory assertions, to overcome the presumption that officers act in good faith.

Read the full opinion: Walsh v. Hackett (AC-25-P-481, September 29, 2026).