The problem of officers failing to activate recording equipment before or during a force encounter can be a thorny one with multiple potentially negative consequences. But a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit has tried to push the issue to a new and radical extreme. The incident in question began in the snowy, predawn hours of...Read More
Two recent federal appellate decisions are good reminders of how US judges may assess claims of excessive force where unarmed suspects are involved. Atty. Michael Brave, always a popular legal updater at ILEETA conferences and other venues, tells Force Science News that these cases “have many learning points” for trainers, police attorneys, and street officers...Read More
A recent US Appeals Court decision hinged on whether an officer’s use of a CEW was objectively reasonable, but an important subtext in the case concerns de-escalation—more precisely, whether a fateful escalation of force could have been prevented in the first place by a different attitude and different language. The Michigan case, Marshall v. City...Read More
EDITOR’S NOTE: Last September in a volatile case that drew international attention, Betty Shelby, a white police officer in Tulsa, OK, was charged with first-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting an uncooperative black man she thought was reaching into his SUV for a gun to use against her. No weapon was found, and Shelby was accused...Read More
Part 1 of a 2-part report Police Atty. Scott Wood was absorbed in his son’s high school football game that Friday night, so he missed the two calls to his cell phone until half time. Then he listened to the voice mails that hurled him into one of the nation’s most explosive officer-involved shootings. A...Read More
A federal appellate court has ruled that a sheriff’s deputy was justified in shooting dead the driver of a car heading toward him as a weapon, even though the deputy deliberately stepped into the vehicle’s path and stayed there when he had the opportunity to move aside. The 10th circuit Court of Appeals said the...Read More
A U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that LEOs have no obligation to transport delusional subjects to a hospital instead of to jail in the absence of evidence of special medical risks. A three-judge panel in the 6th appellate circuit last month reversed a lower court that had denied qualified immunity and summary judgment to...Read More
Part of an ongoing series on real-world successes The shooting was predictably controversial: A sheriff’s deputy fatally shot a black man with a master’s degree in telecommunications, a steady job at an advertising agency, no criminal record, and a history of mental illness, who was carrying home an unloaded air rifle he’d just bought at...Read More
The risk of keeping a finger on the trigger when not intending to shoot has long been emphasized in Force Science research reports. The potential human toll–and the liability burden–are vividly illustrated in a recent Appellate Court decision in which justices ruled that officers are not guaranteed qualified immunity from legal action when a shooting...Read More
The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided a case involving fatal shots fired at a moving vehicle that provides an important reminder to officers about thoroughly articulating use of force and offers help to police lawyers in arguing qualified immunity cases, according to two prominent law enforcement attorneys who are also Force Science instructors. For officers...Read More