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(CN) — Hours after Omaha threw a parade in his honor, world boxing champion Terence Crawford climbed into his car to head home. He didn’t make it far.
At 1:28 a.m. on Sept. 28, 2025, Omaha police pulled over Crawford’s 2025 Lucid Air Sapphire at North 12th and Cass streets. His bodyguard, Qasim Shabazz, immediately told the approaching officer he was legally carrying a firearm.
Three seconds later, officers on both sides of the car drew their weapons and ordered everyone out at gunpoint. All four occupants were handcuffed and held for about 30 minutes. Both firearms in the vehicle came back clean.
Crawford is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit that followed. But Shabazz, along with passengers George Williams and Nadia Metoyer, sued the city of Omaha, its police chief and more than a dozen officers, accusing them of violating their constitutional rights.
On Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Nelson dismissed three of the plaintiffs’ claims, finding they were barred by sovereign immunity and state law while allowing the rest of the case to proceed.
The court dismissed Count VIII, a standalone claim under a Nebraska civil rights statute, finding the law expressly exempts political subdivisions and their employees.
The statute, Nebraska Revised Statute Section 20-148, “is a procedural statute which does not create any new substantive rights,” Nelson wrote.
The court also dismissed Counts IX and X, which claimed violations of the Nebraska Constitution for excessive force and racial discrimination. Nelson ruled the claims were barred by sovereign immunity under the Nebraska Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act because, regardless of how they were framed, they amounted to assault, false arrest and battery claims.
“Even though the plaintiffs did not plead Counts IX and X as intentional torts,” Nelson wrote, “the factual allegations constitute grounds for bringing assault, false arrest, and/or battery claims under Nebraska law.”
Under Nebraska law, that is fatal to those counts. The state’s Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act preserves sovereign immunity for claims arising from conduct such as assault, battery and false arrest, and Nelson found that exception applied here.
Nelson also dismissed the official-capacity claims against the individually named officers, finding them redundant.
“A suit against a public official in his official capacity is actually a suit against the entity for which the official is an agent,” Nelson wrote.
Because the city of Omaha is already a defendant, the official-capacity claims were redundant, Nelson found.
His ruling narrows, but does not end, the case. The plaintiffs’ federal claims under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 remain intact, including excessive force and failure-to-intervene claims against the individually named officers.
The plaintiffs also continue to pursue claims that the city of Omaha maintained an unconstitutional policy of deploying firearms against people who lawfully disclose they are carrying a weapon and didn’t adequately train officers on the constitutional limits of dealing with lawfully armed citizens.
The defendants must file an answer to the remaining claims by July 8.
Representatives for the city of Omaha and the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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