Sentencing study confirms doubts police officers should be allowed to shoot first
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 2-1 Monday in its controversial Shelby County v. Holder case that police officers cannot legally use deadly force to prevent a death while «reasona스웨 디시bly investigating» for possible criminal wrongdoing.
The case, Shelby v. Holder, found the use of deadly force as an example of constitutional protection of «life, liberty and property.»
The case comes amid a growing chorus calling for police departments nationwide to abandon police-brutality policies, like the one employed at the hands of Ferguson police over 온라인바카라the killing of Michael Brown last year.
A federal district judge in February ruled that Ferguson’s police department was immune from state liability in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown. He wrote that «the officer’s use of lethal force was in no way disproportionate to the circumstances of the situation as described by the eyewitness» and that the killing of Brown «was objectively reasonable.»
The court found, however, that the law, as written by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, failed to apply to the actions of Michael Brown’s killer, Darren Wilson. The law stated «the use of force must be reasonable under all of the circumstances.»
The high court’s decision Monday, however, could have significant practical impacts on other police forces across the nation.
In the decision released Monday, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the case «requires us to reconsider whether our Constitution should apply to the actions of an officer who is responding to the report of a dangerous situation when he encounters a suspicious person.»
«The law has to apply in the circumstances, and not to the officer’s opinion, in order for the officer to render an appropriately pro골목portioned assistance,» he wrote. «If the Court is to find a reasonable, just law applicable to this case, we must look to the facts as opposed to the officer’s opinion.»
The high court’s ruling came shortly after the Justice Department’s civil rights division announced the arrest of a 26-year-old from Florida for running away from the officer and striking another police car with his truck, killing a woman and severely injuring another. The man told the officer he was carrying a bottle of weed and refused to speak to the officer, according to police records. The incident happened on a busy road in a county that has been under Democratic president Donald Trump.
Roberts, in his majority opinion Monday, said the «plain language» o