Category: Use of Force

Supreme Court Takes Up Law Enforcement Related Cases

by · Oct 4, 2024 10:19 am

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a short orders list from Monday’s pre-term conference, adding 15 cases to the docket for the October 2024 Term. A much longer list of cases turned down will likely be issued next Monday at the formal opening of the term.

Continuing the high court’s frustrating lack of interest in criminal law, the list includes only one actual criminal case, Thompson v. United States, No. 23-1095. This case raises the question of whether the federal law against false statements to financial institutions and federal agencies extends to misleading half truths. An aspect of the case that increases its media profile is the fact that defendant Patrick Daley Thompson is the grandson of Chicago’s notoriously corrupt mayor Richard J. Daley and the nephew of later mayor Richard M. Daley.

There are also several law-enforcement-related civil cases, a category that gets more interest from SCOTUS:

Gutierrez v. Saenz, No. 23-7809, is a federal civil rights suit regarding a Texas capital case. It presents somewhat complex issues regarding DNA testing, standing, and distinctions between innocence claims and sentencing claims.

Barnes v. Felix, No. 23-1239, is a police use-of-force case involving the “moment of threat doctrine.” As described by the petitioner (i.e., the plaintiff suing the police officer), this approach “evaluates the reasonableness of an officer’s actions only in the narrow window when the officer’s safety was threatened, and not based on events that precede the moment of the threat.” In the Fifth Circuit, Judge Higginbotham wrote a concurrence to his own majority opinion asking the Supreme Court to resolve the circuit split on this issue. Continue reading . . .

Qualified Immunity and Armchair Quarterbacks

by · Apr 1, 2024 11:12 am

Four years ago, Daniel Hernandez died on the street in Los Angeles because of his own inexcusable act of coming at a police office with a raised knife* in his hand and continuing after repeated warnings. So, as is common these days, there were protests and a lawsuit claiming that the police violated his civil rights.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the federal civil rights actions on March 21 in Estate of Hernandez v. City of Los Angeles, though it held that state-law claims can go forward. Parsing the various shots fired by Officer Toni McBride, the court held that the first and second volleys were clearly justified but a third pair of shots presented a question of excessive force. Qualified immunity applies, though, because the law is not clearly established regarding the later shots. This holding raises the usual squeals that the qualified immunity standard is too restrictive, requiring a precedent that is a factual match. See, e.g., this article by Kevin Rector in the LA Times.

I agree with the Ninth Circuit’s legal analysis of the qualified immunity question. It correctly applies U.S. Supreme Court precedents on the subject. What I find troubling about the case, though, is the exercise of people in their comfortable offices carefully parsing video of an event on the street that happened in mere seconds. Continue reading . . .

FBI finally releases data from the National Use-of-Force Data Collection

by · Jun 9, 2022 10:04 am

On May 31, 2022, the FBI released national-level statistics on police use of force for the first time ever. These data were derived from the National Use-of-Force Data Collection, which is the first national-level dataset to collect data on police use of force. Law enforcement agencies are not required to submit their data though, so participation rates have been a consistent issue that has prevented the release of information up until this point. The FBI has been reporting on participation rates, but because participation rates have been below the required 60% threshold (up until now), it was unclear whether details on actual use-of-force data would ever be released. Relatedly, there was speculation that lack of participation might even cause the database to shut down.

Continue reading . . .

New study examines the impacts of the pandemic and George Floyd’s death on crime and policing

by · Apr 19, 2022 10:38 am

After the killing of George Floyd in 2020, protests erupted throughout many cities and calls for defunding the police became the new norm. This also occurred at the same time as the pandemic, which police responded to in myriad ways. A new study by researchers at Arizona State University examined the independent impacts of George Floyd’s death and the pandemic on crime and police work. Overall, the study found that both events had independent impacts on some measures of crime and police activity. The pandemic seemed to have a greater impact on crime while George Floyd’s death seemed to have a greater impact on police proactivity. The impacts on police work were massive and are consistent with the de-policing hypothesis.

Continue reading . . .

New public database on officer-involved fatalities

by · Apr 7, 2022 3:14 pm

At present, the government does not mandate the reporting of lethal force by police departments, and there is no official number of the number of people killed by police annually. The National Use-of-Force Data Collection is the first national-level attempt to offer big-picture insights on police use of force but it is still in its infancy, and participation rates have been so low that the database may shut down.

But thanks to researchers at University of Southern California (USC) Dornsife, a new open-source database on police-involved fatalities has emerged and preliminary findings have recently been released.

Continue reading . . .

Fatal police shootings and race

by · Mar 17, 2022 8:00 am

The claim that police lethal force is disproportionately used against blacks has gained a lot of attention in recent years. Some data show the strength of this perception, though there is also data questioning this assertion. Unfortunately, the government does not mandate the reporting of lethal force by police departments, so it has been difficult to learn more about the frequency and context of these incidents. Nonetheless, the narrative that blacks are disproportionately killed by the police has inspired rapid policy changes.

Some databases have attempted to collate information on police use of lethal force, but their numbers are not always consistent and are subject to their own limitations. Other researchers have examined the relationship between race and police lethal force at a more detailed level, where they are able to see whether other case characteristics influence the relationship. A recent report by Robert VerBruggen of the Manhattan Institute explains several of the approaches used to examine racial bias in fatal police shootings, which are discussed below.

Continue reading . . .

Real police reform requires an increase in officers

by · Jan 3, 2022 4:00 pm

As more and more cities call for defunding the police, large police departments continue to face worsening staff shortages. Defunding the police is meant to be a reform effort, but paradoxically, in many ways it may limit police from doing their jobs well. A recent article in Manhattan Institute’s City Journal describes alternative options for police reform other than defunding, citing community policing, foot patrols, or defensive tactics training — but all of these take time, staff, and money. For example, conflict resolution may be an effective method for resolving problems without resorting to arrest, but it takes longer.

Continue reading . . .

Police use of force standards: Policymaking targets

by · Dec 27, 2021 3:47 pm

Despite police use of force being a low-occurring event, well-publicized incidents can evoke widespread concern among community members and policymakers alike. Despite this, the police are still a primary agent of coercive force, and typically when police are called there is a strong possibility that coercive force may be necessary. From a legal perspective, the most important consideration in police use of force is the U.S. Supreme Court case Graham v. Connor, which provided a professional and legal understanding of reasonableness viewed as an objective evaluation of the totality of prevailing circumstances at that time. The formulation of the reasonableness standard has been controversial on several fronts, though, mostly because there is ambiguity of what a “reasonable officer” is and what is deemed reasonable likely differs between police officers and the general community.

In addition to Graham v. Connor, a primary mechanism employed to deter excessive police force is through department policy.  Law enforcement agencies (LEAs) desiring national accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) must have well-developed policies that clearly govern use of deadly force, less-lethal force, the rendering of medical aid subsequent to force, the training and proficiency with authorized weapons, and the reporting and review of of uses of force. Police departments typically have established use-of-force continua to guide officer decisions regarding what type of force should be used for a given level of subject resistance. Continua include varying levels of resistance and force arranged along an ordinal scale in terms of the severity of harm it presents to the other person. Typically, continua specify the highest level of force allowed for a given level of subject resistance. Despite the widespread use of these continua by LEAs though, little research has been conducted to evaluate the accuracy of force continua with underlying ordinal rankings.

Continue reading . . .

Use-of-force data collection may cease due to lack of LE participation

by · Dec 22, 2021 10:33 am

Over the last  few years, strain between police and the community has intensified greatly as incidents have come to light showing hostility between the police and the communities. However, when it comes to really understanding how often these types of events occur, there is no official number of the number of people killed by police annually.  Still, unreliable government numbers fail to portray the true scope of officer-involved shootings and fatalities. The National Use-of-Force Data Collection is the first national-level dataset to offer big-picture insights on police use of force, but participation has been quite low. In fact, law enforcement participation in the national data collection has been so low that it could cause the database to shut down.

Continue reading . . .

Lack of data hinders research on police violence: Official vs. open-source data

by · Nov 19, 2021 10:30 am

Over the last  few years, strain between police-community relations has intensified greatly as incidents have come to light (e.g., officer-involved shootings, protests) showing hostility between the police and the communities. Although circulation of “viral” videos of police incidents has increased, officer-involved shootings are still a relatively low-occurring event overall. Though, media exposure may make this problem seem more exacerbated than it is. Regardless, lack of transparency on official numbers contributes to contention over police. At present, there is no official number of the number of people killed by police annually.  Still, unreliable government numbers fail to portray the true scope of officer-involved shootings and fatalities. The National Use-of-Force Data Collection is the first national-level dataset to offer big-picture insights on police use of force but it is still in its infancy.

Otherwise, one of the closest things to an official source regarding officer-involved fatalities is collected by the U.S. National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), which tracks death certificates and causes of death in the country. Unfortunately though, these results may be undercounted by more than half, per a recent study in The Lancet. The study compared data from NVSS with data from three of four major publicly available, open-source databases compiled by various researchers (i.e., “Fatal Encounters,” “Mapping Police Violence,” and “The Counted”). The information in these databases is collated from news reports, department websites, and in some cases, public records requests. However, the data sources vary in where and how they collect their data (and how successful they were), so it is difficult to know whether any of these databases adequately represents the United States.

Update: As of December 9, 2021, law enforcement participation in the use-of-force data collection has remained quite low, which may cause the database to shut down.

Continue reading . . .