The police cruiser rammed the black Cadillac from behind as they raced along a wet, two-lane road near Atlanta at roughly 90 miles an hour. The Cadillac’s 19-year-old driver lost control and ended up at the bottom of an embankment, paralyzed.
Victor Harris was being chased by police because he had been speeding. He said later he was too frightened to stop. Coweta County sheriff’s deputy Timothy Scott said he wanted to end the chase before other drivers or pedestrians were hurt.
Harris sued Scott for violating his civil rights and the case has reached the Supreme Court, where it will be argued on Monday. The deputy wants the justices to conclude that his actions, captured on the dashboard camera of his car, were reasonable and dismiss the lawsuit.
It…is the first case in more than 20 years in which the court will consider constitutional limits on police use of deadly force to stop fleeing suspects. Courts define deadly force as creating a substantial risk of death or serious injury.
Well — should there be an ironclad rule governing all such chases? Or do we allow individual police officers decide how to proceed within their view of that moment of conflict between law-breaker and law-enforcement?
So does this Victor Harris kids family have ass loads of money to fight this?
I guess cops should be Psychic in order to know why the person is running.
Case should have never made it this far.
When it comes to speeding let the driver run.They have radios and can call ahead to set up a stop.A high speed chase is to dangerous for everyone.
I disagree with the argument that the cops could have simply went to his house to arrest him later. How in the frick did the cops know who was driving?! As far as they knew the car was stolen. As far as the cops know it was a car-jacking and a victim is in the back seat. Heck, how did the cops know that Harris still lived at the same address?!
Is it illegal to speed? Yes. Is it illegal to evade the police? Yes. Who caused the accident? Mr. Harris. He was the only person to stop the chase without an accident but he refused to do it. Now he’s paying the consequences.
I personally think that on-duty cops should have absolute immunity in such car cases from the driver, any passengers, and from any third parties who are injured.
This is quite simple and it has always been quite simple. If the bad guys know the cops won’t chase them, they will run every time. If they run every time, more people will get hurt, one way or another.
#5 – SN
C’mon, man, you know better. Aren’t you a lawyer?
“As far as they knew the car was stolen. As far as the cops know it was a car-jacking and a victim is in the back seat.”
As far as they knew? Gimme a break; last time I checked, Atlanta cops had computers in their cars. Speeding, not ‘someone in the back seat,’ not a kidnapping or auto theft report, got the cop’s notice.
As soon as he took after this guy, he put in a tag search. The car was not on the hot sheet. The owner had no wants or warrants. Therefore, at that point, the cop had nothing on the driver but a traffic violation. IOW, no probable cause to believe that the driver had committed any other offense.
And for the cop to engage in a high speed chase, at night, on rain-slick roads – in other words, in circumstances creating maximum danger to everyone, innocent bystanders included – to effect a fucking traffic stop was idiotic, reckless, unprofessional and unacceptable.
You’re all wet on this one, SN. Sorry, d00d!
5. “Atlanta cops had computers in their cars”
Knowing who the car is registered to is completely different from determining who’s driving it.
“Speeding, not ’someone in the back seat,’ not a kidnapping or auto theft report, got the cop’s notice.”
But what causes someone to speed? Do you just randomly lead police in high speed chases? The vast majority of such chases are caused by alcohol or some other felony offense.
“As soon as he took after this guy, he put in a tag search. The car was not on the hot sheet.”
Which it wouldn’t be if the guy just stole it.
“Therefore, at that point, the cop had nothing on the driver but a traffic violation. IOW, no probable cause to believe that the driver had committed any other offense.”
He had proof that the guy was speeding, which is illegal, and evading the police, which is a felony. Why he was speeding is certainly compelling as to stopping thim.
“And for the cop to engage in a high speed chase… was idiotic, reckless, unprofessional and unacceptable.”
You’re right that it was idiotic and reckless. But you’re blaming the wrong person. Who caused it? Who violated the speed limit? Who evaded the police? Who could have stopped it? The only person who was an idiot was Harris.
#4 – Fred Flint
Bad guys? What are we talking about here, this guy is a Columbian cocaine kingpin, a gangbanger, an armed robber, wha?
Answer: None of the above. He was a speeder. If you think speeders are criminals, I’ll mention that, under all but very exceptional circumstances, in a few places – speeding is not a criminal offense. The guy was not a fleeing criminal. Apples and oranges, Fred, apples and oranges.
#2 – Billabong
You got it. Nowhere did I read that (a) the cop’s radio wasn’t working, or (b) that he was the only cop on the street in Atlanta that night. If one car speeding at night in the rain is dangerous – the “bad guy,” as Fred calls him, I have a problem with the concept that adding another speeding car to the mix is somehow less dangerous… I just checked with my trusty HP-42c calculator, and it confirms what I had surmised:
1 wrong
+ 1 wrong
– – – – – – – – –
≠ 1 right
#5, Yes, because a stolen car is immediately identified as such on all the police “hot sheets.” So when the police officer turns on his lights because of the traffic violation and the driver doesn’t stop, or speeds up to evade, the office still has no probable cause in your books?
7. “The guy was not a fleeing criminal. Apples and oranges, Fred, apples and oranges.”
Which is extremely easy to determine years after the fact. Unfortunately, the police don’t have years to make such determinations when they see someone speeding and evading them.
And I just wanted to add that fleeing the cops does make him a criminal.
How many helicopters could this law case have bought so far?
Stick a bunch of them up there and you don’t have to chase anybody.
Speeding is the probable cause to pull someone over.
If someone decides not to stop for police when they signaled to do so, they are breaking additional laws.
I have little sympathy for the 19 year old MAN who decided not to stop when signaled to do so.
If he felt it was unsafe to pull over because he felt that the person trying to pull him over might not have actually been Law Enforcement, he should have driven to a well lit area like a gas station to pull over. Not at high speed, mind you.
If you are knowlingly breaking the law, you should not be able to sue the police trying to prevent you from harming other people, including yourself.
#7
Answer: None of the above. He was a speeder
WRONG! The second he decided to run he was no longer just a speeder, he was a criminal recklessly endangering other people’s lives with a deadly weapon (his car).
Police radios are great. But they can’t be used to radio ahead where someone will be if you don’t follow them to see where they will be. Once out of sight, all it takes is one turn to loose the cops.
This problem does not have an easy fix until we have some way to stop a speeding car quickly and safely. Come on engineers and scientists, we can (well we used to be able to) send a man to the moon…..
#9, agreed, fleeing makes him a criminal, responsible for his actions.
Hard lesson though.
If the guy didn’t run he wouldn’t be in this situation. If you run from the cops, then you get what you deserve.
If the guy didn’t run he wouldn’t be in this situation. If you run from the cops, then you get what you deserve.
Do innocent bystanders, who are often killed, also get what they deserve? Even if the fleeing suspect has actually just murdered someone and kidnapped a kid, how do you weigh the risks of killing other innocent motorists against the risk of not rescuing the kidnap victims? It’s a hard question, but statistically, high speed pursuits generally do more harm than good.
Do innocent bystanders, who are often killed
I want statistics…
I once got a late-evening call from the police to come pick up my son, who was 17 at the time. He was the passenger in a car driven by another 17-year old that had ran when the police tried to pull them over. When I got to the address given to me, I found my son sitting on the side of the road with his hands cuffed behind him. The officers released him into my custody.
My son said that his buddy freaked out when an officer turned on his lights. He yelled at the driver, “What the hell are you running for? We weren’t doing anything wrong!” It took him 5 minutes to convince his buddy to pull over.
I wonder if there is an upper bound for stupidity.
#7 So I guess besides cars equipped with computers and radios, cops are now required to have ESP. The reason I say this is because with your logic, the pursuing cop must have known that the car was just stolen (Some people don’t realize their car has been stolen for days-imagine a car stolen from an airport-the owner wouldn’t know until he came back from his trip, plus a 1,000 other possibilities). Or the pursuing cop also must’ve known that the speeder wasn’t a pedophile and had just kidnapped a child to molest, or car jacked the car with the owner in the back seat or trunk.
Usually when a driver tries to evade the police its for good reason-they have just committed a felony and don’t want to get caught.
All you people who side with this criminal need to rethink your position. Why was he running away? The cops have no idea, and have to suspect the worse. Put yourself in the shoes of a kidnapping victim.
Suppose you were tied up in the trunk, or worse yet your child was just abducted.
WOULD YOU WANT THE POLICE TO END THE CHASE SIMPLY BECAUSE THE PEDOPHILE TRIED TO SPEED AWAY FROM THE POLICE???
PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY NEED TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS. HAD THIS CRIMINAL STOPPED, HE WOULD NOT BE WHERE HE IS TODAY, IT IS NOBODY’S FAULT BUT HIS OWN.
I tend to agree with those saying Mr. Harris should have stopped. he put himself and others in danger. it’s unfortunate he ended up badly injured by he was a direct cause of what happened.
afraid to stop. I think somebody had been watching too many episodes of the Shield.
Throwing out such a case should be a no-brainer. Soon we’ll have incarcerated criminal suing back for the right to be free! Gaaa!
Because someone was speeding and refused to pull over, does not makes the police officer judge and jury as well with the right to hand out potential death sentences …not only to the speeder, but to innocent bystanders that may have been walking along the side of the road. I got to think this becomes one of those macho control issues with the police. Why push the driver to speed risking pedestrian lives, innocent children passenger’s lives, and other driver’s lives. Protect and serve. Get the license plate number, get some pictures with the camera on the cop car, and send the guy a speeding ticket or meet him at his home later that evening. Turning a minor speeding violation into a high speed life threatening chase seems ridiculous. The penalty should not be dismemberment — we don’t even do that to rapists. Since when does speeding warrant combat war tactics.
Where does it end? If I am accused of jaywalking, but I resist arrest …does the cop have the right to pull out his gun and shoot me on the street as I run away?
Here’s a tech solution …how about a gun that shoots a magnetic tag onto the car …then you could track the driver until he stops the car. No high speed chase needed.
#7: He was a speeder. If you think speeders are criminals, I’ll mention that, under all but very exceptional circumstances, in a few places – speeding is not a criminal offense. The guy was not a fleeing criminal.
Uh, there are laws against speeding, right? They are misdemeanors, in fact. By speeding, you are breaking the law, which by definition is a criminal offense. . . Point of information: the US Supreme Court has ruled that cops can ‘cuff you and hall you down to the station for a mug shoot and fingerprints just for speeding.
I don’t know any statistics, but my guess is the vast majority of chases start out because the suspect is (A) avoiding a minor misdemeanor (suspended license, no insurance, etc.) or (B) just making a stupid decision. A minority of the chases are actually over people fleeing from the scene of a crime and/or while in commission of a felony.
I should add that this whole mess was a result of this person’s incredibly poor judgment. Sure, the cop was responsible, but you forfeit some of your rights when you’re putting innocent people at risk. This was a justified use of force, given the light traffic and hour of night. Had the roads been packed with traffic or pedestrians, the police should have called off the chase.
It’s not chasing the speeding car at 90 mph that looks wrong to me – it’s coming up behind him and intentionally causing an accident at that speed. Hindsight is cheap after such an incident, but I’d think this guy’s training would have been to tail the guy, not lose him, and call in other cars to create a road block, corral the driver, or whatever. Driving up behind at 90 and “tapping” him off an embankment? That can’t possibly be approved and legal, far less safe for bystanders, the cowboy cop, the fleeing driver, or anyone else.
Wait. I said “training” and this was Atlanta. Never mind.
This country’s gotten TOO soft! If a cop says stop and you run, I don’t care if they ram you, run you over or shoot you. Gimme a break! How many law abiding citizens do you know that run from the cops? Boo-hoo poor little criminal got paralyzed. You want to let the police just let him speed around til he kills my kids crossing the street? Stop the madness.
When you are taught in driving school that you are supposed to stop when you see a police car with lights on, where in the hell would they get the idea it would make the situation better by running?
Kill a few of the runners, let the waves roll through. Maybe then people will wake up. But gotta shoot em real soon after the chase starts, dont want anyone to be worried about innocent bystanders.
This actually happened in Coweta county which is about 40 miles outside of Atlanta.
#23…tjgeezer….we just had a very similer occurance here in Northern California last night. A guy was speeding, the cops went after him and he refused to pull over, he was traveling at speeds up to 100 mph and was headed for the freeway, the cops made the decision to stop him before he got on the freeway where there were many cars and might possibly cause an accident, so they caught up to him and rammed the car, causing it to become stopped and incapable of speeding off again.
This is becoming a common practice when road spikes and other devices either fail to stop the runners or can’t be used in time. I do know that most police departments are now trained in this type of ram and stop procedure as a last resort. It can be very dangerous for all involved. But under present law in most states, if a suspect runs, he/she has committed a felony and the police can do what is nessesary to stop them.
Hah, poor little criminal. One less looser running from the cops in the future. Well, maybe he will be rolling down the sidewalk away from the cops in the future.
I hope this case gets thrown out and the mope gets counter sued for legal fees.
Maybe they can mount harpoon type spears on the front of the cop cars. Then they just bump the perps car, the harpoon teeth engage the perps car, and the cops hit the brakes and they both stop.
Better yet, hows bout a TOW missle, Now theres a little deterrence for ye.
Don
I am not sure about some of the idiots posting here, but I do not feel safer allowing cops unquestionable immunity to use deadly force (Tazers, Choke holds, Emptying magazines into unarmed suspects …..)
The same idiots have no problem seeing an American Solder sentence for poor judgement in the use of deadly force in IRAQ; they should have no problem with check and balance approach to Policing America.
Last I checked, this is America, the one with the Bill or Rights and Constitution. But those are soon disappearing. If they don’t like America’s Bill or Rights or Constitution they should go to Russia.
Just because we voice our opinions doesn’t make us idiots. We are just exercising our rights in that ol’ Constitution you mentioned. Tsk tsk.