Police Use of Force Question

[Foxmaster05]

[RedVines]

No, there has not been a Supreme Court decision that overrules Tennessee V Garner

[IlDuche]

Because no matter what, unless the guy is screaming "I'm going to murder and eat babies" while walking into a daycare with an AK and steak sauce, the public does not like its police to shoot people running away. Whether justified or not.

The fleeing felon exception generally is the use of deadly force "to stop a fleeing felon, who presents an immediate risk of death or GBI, either to another person/officer or the public at large, when no other reasonable means of apprehension exists." That being said, could it be argued? Sure. But it'd be a lot better if it was shown that he was shot while charging the officer.

[IlDuche]

Red vines, I'm trying to quote the 4th order of performance....been a while. Help me out!

[mixicus]

OP- You should also take a look at the Graham V. Connor decision when addressing police use of force. “The reasonableness of a particular use of force must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight”. So would a reasonable officer with the same training and experience and based on the totality of the facts and circumstances, believe that the force was reasonable?

[CaptMike]

OP- Use of force and the fleeing felon rule is very difficult to explain and takes hours of lecture to understand.

The basics: If you feel that your life or someone elses life is in IMMEDIATE danger of great bodily injury or death, you have the right to use lethal force. Once the threat stops, you may not use lethal force. This is based on the perspective of the person that may need to use force based on their training and experience.

This can go in many directions based on the situation. Normally you cannot use lethal force on a fleeing felon. If you were to add the facts that this fleeing felon just shot at you and is running towards a school with 300 kids inside and he still has his gun in hand. As an officer, based on my judgment and training, I feel that he poses an immediate threat to the lives of those children since he has already demonstrated that he is willing to use lethal force on me. In this situation I may be right in using lethal force to stop him as a fleeing felon. Even this basic scenario can be manipulated in multiple ways by a dogged attorney.

Needless to say, there is lots of internet "information" that is floating around regarding what happened in the case you mentioned. We need to wait for the official report to determine if the officer was right or wrong.

[CAguy]

Check out this story OP as it directly relates to your question:

http://news.yahoo.com/5-years-officer-shot-handcuffed-suspect-205943516.html

[RickD427]

Foxmaster,

Tennessee v. Garner remains the primary case for determining the appropriateness of deadly force. Graham v Conner defines the perspective from which the use-of-force is evaluated.

There are two key sentences in the Garner decision that really frame it well:

"Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so."

"Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force."

Many folks falsely believe that it is improper to apply deadly force to a fleeing suspect. The second quote above from Garner should pretty explode that belief. At the same time the threshold is set at "serious" physical harm.

Given that specific use of the word "serious", combined with the overall context of the decision, many agencies have opted to set a very high standard for the use of deadly force against fleeing suspects. All that I have seen rise well above the standard required by Garner.

I will not comment on the Brown shooting. The facts of that shooting have not yet been made clear, too many points remain in dispute, and a grand jury finding is pending.

Under most LE policies, the officer must have a well-founded belief that the fleeing suspect continues to pose a serious threat if not immediately apprehended. A good example might be a serial murder suspect who is fleeing. A suspect committing an unarmed battery would probably not fit that criteria.

[RedVines]

IlDuche, sounds close enough to me

[Foxmaster05]

Some very insightful responses here. Thank you guys for taking the time to write these out. I'll read up on the Graham v Conner decision today, as I was unfamiliar with that case until now.

[Foxmaster05]

Check out this story OP as it directly relates to your question:

http://news.yahoo.com/5-years-office...205943516.html

Very interesting article. I can see why the court ruled the way they did in this case, as a fleeing suspect in handcuffs cannot pose the same risk to public safety as a fleeing suspect who is armed.

[Samuelx]

Very interesting article. I can see why the court ruled the way they did in this case, as a fleeing suspect in handcuffs cannot pose the same risk to public safety as a fleeing suspect who is armed.

Handcuffs vs no handcuffs is only one small factor - the totality of the cirumstances also includes why that person was being detained/arrested to begin with. E.g. if someone like a christopher dorner or richard ramirez or jeffrey dahmer, etc was naked, unarmed, handcuffed, and running away (not even towards any one or any place in particular), all else being equal, I could easily justify using deadly force to prevent escape.

In G v C, SCOTUS determined that the reasonableness of an officer's use of force must be judged from the perspective of a REASONABLE OFFICER on the scene - the problem is that the "system" does not strictly adhere to that and allows judging and second guessing by a number of ignorant non-LEOs. Hell, even the so-called expert witnesses called in to testify against LEOs are often incompetent when it comes to use of force...

[CBR_rider]

Check out this story OP as it directly relates to your question:

http://news.yahoo.com/5-years-office...205943516.html

Yes and no, according to the article (which we all know quite possibly left out important information..) the suspect was arrested solely for driving a stolen motorcycle. The OP's question regarding a felony assault on a LEO is viewed a bit differently (as would an ADW suspect, homicide suspect, serial rapist, etc).

Now for the sake of discussion for this thread, we don't know if that motorcycle was taken in a carjacking, used in an armed robbery or homicide, etc, but ABSENT any other information (solely a suspect in custody for motor vehicle theft without a KNOWN violent history, weapons, or some kind of assault during his arrest for the motor vehicle theft) I agree that the former Sergeant should be in some trouble for that shoot.... I don't know how they work back East, but where I work that one was a no-brainer (again, based SOLELY on the information provided in the article, other info could easily change my opinion)