Use of Force Standards
Historically, police have been allowed to use “necessary force,” while citizen defenders were limited to “equal force.” When the ordinary citizen was in a fistfight with a man his own size, weight and age, if he resorted to a club, he was likely to be charged with aggravated battery or assault with a deadly weapon. An officer fighting a man his size who was resisting arrest was expected to resort to a baton. The reason was that the officer had a greater duty, to wit, the obligation to overpower the suspect’s resistance, manacle him, and transport him to jail — all of which can require more force than simply convincing the opponent to stop trying to harm him. But when the lethal force level was reached, the standard was essentially the same: Either could generally use deadly force only to prevent death or great bodily harm to oneself or another innocent party at the hands of the criminal in question.
Much of the public has falsely been led to believe that police can use deadly force almost on a whim and be held harmless in the courts through qualified immunity. On the contrary, the police use of force is guided by the Supreme Court’s decision in Graham v. Connor and the standard of “objective reasonableness.” In essence, those judging the cop who used any kind of force must ask themselves, “What would a reasonable, prudent, trained and experienced police officer have done in the exact same situation, knowing what the officer knew at the time?” This is directly analogous to the “reasonable man” standard that armed citizens had long before Graham v. Connor, “What would a reasonable and prudent person have done in the exact same situation, knowing what the defendant knew?”
“Are cops ‘law enforcement’ or ‘peace officers’?” is almost a silly question. The answer is they are both. To keep the peace, they must enforce the law; the law, in turn, empowers them to use necessary force to do so. The standards for armed citizens and police are closer than the media would have us believe. We’ll go into more detail on that in this space in the future.
Subscribe To American Handgunner
Read the full article here