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WASHINGTON It started with a bottle of orange juice 30 years ago.
The national legal standards that govern when police officers are justified in using force against people trace their lineage to a 1984 case from Charlotte, N.C. In that case, a diabetic mans erratic behavior during a trip to a convenience store for juice to bring up his low blood sugar led to a confrontation with officers that left him with injuries from head to foot.
Dethorne Grahams subsequent lawsuit against police for his injuries led to a 1989 Supreme Court decision that has become the prism for evaluating how police use force. As soon as Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown on Aug. 9, the Graham v. Connor case became the foundational test for whether Wilsons response was appropriate or criminal.
To most civilians, an 18-year-old unarmed man may not appear to pose a deadly threat. But a police officers perspective is different. And that is how an officer should be judged after the fact, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote in the 1989 opinion.
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, Rehnquist wrote.
The sequence of events that led to the death of Brown, a black man shot by a white officer, remains unclear. An autopsy paid for by Browns family concluded that he was shot six times, twice in the head. The shooting has prompted multiple investigations and triggered days of rioting reflecting long-simmering racial tensions in a town of mostly black residents and a majority white police force.
Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday that the incident had opened a national conversation about the appropriate use of force and the need to ensure fair and equal treatment for everyone who comes into contact with the police.
A grand jury is hearing evidence to determine whether Wilson, 28, who has policed the St. Louis suburbs for six years, should be charged in Browns death.
The key question will be: Would a reasonable police officer, with a background such as Wilsons, have responded the same way?
The answer is typically yes.
Except in the most outrageous cases of police misconduct, juries tend to side with police officers and give them a lot of leeway, said Woody Connette, the attorney who represented Graham.
In Grahams case, his behavior as he was experiencing low blood sugar looked similar to that of a belligerent drunk.
On Nov. 12, 1984, Graham, 39, felt the onset of an insulin reaction and asked a friend to drive him to buy juice, Connette said.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/supreme-court-case-to-shape-ferguson-investigation/article_2d4f15d1-f56a-57cc-9990-631cc1697e60.html
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)People trained to search for threats.
Is it any wonder they perceive any biped standing erect as a mortal threat?
Hooked_n_Looped
(43 posts)... must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight, Rehnquist wrote.
Which is fair...
LiberalArkie
(15,719 posts)wonder how a 1984 case can really the criteria for judgement. Police officers were entirely different creatures back then.