On shooting fleeing suspects

Legal Insurrection

 

. . . "A commenter on my blog asked whether the hue and cry that has resulted means that “if you can run away from a cop, you can get away with any crime because any effort to stop your pursuit using a weapon is unlawful and wrong?”

"No, but unless some very unusual mitigating information emerges, this was too much firepower considering the offense and the situation surrounding it.

"But don’t take my word for it; here are the rules:

The Supreme Court held in a 1989 case, Graham v. Connor, that the appropriateness of use of force by officers “must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene,” rather than evaluated through 20/20 hindsight.

That standard is designed to take into account that police officers are frequently asked to make split-second decisions during fast-evolving confrontations, and should not be subject to overly harsh second guessing…

A seminal 1985 Supreme Court case, Tennessee vs. Garner, held that the police may not shoot at a fleeing person unless the officer reasonably believes that the individual poses a significant physical danger to the officer or others in the community. That means officers are expected to take other, less-deadly action during a foot or car pursuit unless the person being chased is seen as an immediate safety risk.

In other words, a police officer who fires at a fleeing man who a moment earlier murdered a convenience store clerk may have reasonable grounds to argue that the shooting was justified. But if that same robber never fired his own weapon, the officer would likely have a much harder argument.

“You don’t shoot fleeing felons. You apprehend them unless there are exigent circumstances — emergencies — that require urgent police action to safeguard the community as a whole,” said Greg Gilbertson, a police practices expert and criminal justice professor at Centralia College in Washington state.

"That’s the reason the condemnation of Slager was strong from all quarters, including from police." . . .