Posted on 04/03/2018 5:47:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a police officer who shot a woman outside of her home in Tucson, Arizona in May 2010. The officer, Andrew Kisela, shot Amy Hughes after she was seen acting "erratically," hacking at a tree with a knife and arguing with her roommate.
Kisela and another police officer, Alex Garcia, heard about the report on their patrol car radio and responded. A third police officer, Lindsay Kunz, arrived on the scene on her bicycle.
All three officers drew their guns. At least twice they told Hughes to drop the knife. Viewing the record in the light most favorable to Hughes, Chadwick said “take it easy” to both Hughes and the officers. Hughes appeared calm, but she did not acknowledge the officers’ presence or drop the knife. The top bar of the chain-link fence blocked Kisela’s line of fire, so he dropped to the ground and shot Hughes four times through the fence. Then the officers jumped the fence, handcuffed Hughes, and called paramedics, who transported her to a hospital. There she was treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Less than a minute had transpired from the moment the officers saw Chadwick to the moment Kisela fired shots.
Hughes, they later learned, had a history of mental illness. She and Chadwick were roommates and they apparently had a disagreement over $20.
Kisela, Garcia and Kunz defended Kisela's decision to shoot, noting they believed at the time that Hughes was a threat to Chadwick. Still, Hughes sued Kisela, alleging that he had used excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
In their ruling Monday, the Supreme Court cited several other court cases as precedent in their acquittal of the police officer. They cited Kisela’s qualified immunity, which protects public officials from damages for civil liability as long as they did not violate an individual's "clearly established" statutory or constitutional rights, Cornell explains.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, offering a different perspective of what transpired, concluding Officer Kisela acted hastily.
"Kisela did not wait for Hughes to register, much less respond to, the officers’ rushed commands," Sotomayor insisted. "Instead, Kisela immediately and unilaterally escalated the situation."
Furthermore, he gave no advance warning that he would shoot, and "attempted no less dangerous methods to deescalate the situation."
She also disagreed with her colleagues in terms of qualified immunity. An officer is not entitled to qualified immunity, she said, if “(1) they violated a federal statutory or constitutional right, and (2) the unlawfulness of their conduct was ‘clearly established at the time.’”
Hughes, Sotomayor noted, had not committed a crime. Furthermore, when the police officers arrived on the scene, reports indicate that Hughes was standing “composed and content” during her encounter with Chadwick. With the above context, the justice came to the following conclusion.
The majority today exacerbates that troubling asymmetry. Its decision is not just wrong on the law; it also sends an alarming signal to law enforcement officers and the public. It tells officers that they can shoot first and think later, and it tells the public that palpably unreasonable conduct will go unpunished. Because there is nothing right or just under the law about this, I respectfully dissent.
You can read the whole court ruling – and Sotomayor’s dissent – here.
The woman picks up the knife, same thing. All four blasted her.
Common thread alert.
Bingo!
Dead folks don't sue.
Just the ones left behind; hoping to cash in.
They did.
She didn't die.
I am against the idea that a cop can execute someone because they are scared.
I don’t know why you give the cops free reign to execute people but then again I don’t understand the liberal mind
The way I read it the mental woman and her roommate (the person suing) were both on one side of the fence and the cops were on the other side.
The cop was saying he/she fired in defense of the other woman.
The use of force continuum is not a checklist to be gone through from a-z.
The correct level of force for a circumstsnce is the level of force appropriate for the circunstances at that moment.
In this case the officers were on one side of the fejce and the crazy lady with a knife and her roommate were on the other side.
The officers believed the mental woman with the knife was an imminent threat of grave bodily harm to her roommate and one officer fired at the mental woman based upon the perceuved threat.
Have you ever observed someone doing something stupid that put them in danger all while they were oblivious to the impending calamity that they were creating?
That is what the roommate was doing in this instance....standing within lunge distance of a crazy woman with a knife.
“How far does Mace® shoot accurately?”
A. Twenty feet.
“Was there a wind?”
A. It’s a gel now, unaffected by the wind.
“Tasers were on OTHER side of fence; too.”
A. Jump the fence. Mexicans do it all the time.
I’ve never understood why they bring out the “mental illness” defense. A mentally ill attacker is just as much a threat as a non-mentally ill attacker. In other words, that factor shouldn’t even be a part of the formula in use of force considerations.
Same thing for a “teen.”
i see one version of events noted - it seems the friend of the victim - and wonder what time frame and description of events the officers gave?
I did not read soto’s whole dissent, but if she based it on this one view and it’s assumption in at least one part of the incident, that is not a sign of good and lawful judgement.
Are you serious?
You keep talking about lethal force, executions and officers being scared. None of what you say is remotely relevant to the case. Nobody used lethal force, nobody got executed, and nobody fired because they were scared.
It’s like you’re purposely trying to be dense.
Getting shot four times for attacking a tree with a steak knife is not lethal force? Good to know.
Using a chain saw on a tree makes sense as the right tool for a job, and it’s highly unlikely that the police would be summoned for that except maybe on a noise complaint.
Would you shut off your saw and put it down if an officer asked you do so?
Yes, of course you would, as the sane, law-abiding citizen that I assume you are.
So, why do you think the police were called over this incident?
According to what is written, Hughes was:
Not threatening Chadwick. Was not threatening the cops. The cops had a physical barrier between them and she was not trying to climb it. According to their own report, she was “composed and content”. She just didn’t respond to the commands as quick as Kisela thought she should have. She was cutting into a tree with a knife which, last time I checked, isn’t a crime.
Shot her for no reason. I’d be curious to know, not that it would matter, if the cops had Taser’s. Even though, they would have had no legal reason to even use that on her.
Hughes, Sotomayor noted, had not committed a crime. Furthermore, when the police officers arrived on the scene, reports indicate that Hughes was standing “composed and content”.....
HAHAHA! So a call goes to police a mentally ill gal’s swinging a knife (deadly weapon) and making threats and she’s still armed on arrival, hacking at a tree with a knife and arguing with her roommate.....She’s a threat to all.
When they arrived Hughes was holding a large kitchen knife, had taken steps toward another woman standing nearby, and had refused to drop the knife after at least two commands to do so. You don’t follow Police directions you’re going down....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.