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?
A lot of you are stating “if this” and “if that”. Try presenting this case to a judge starting each sentence with “if he did this…” “if he did that…” Sorry, not going to work. Police officers in this case used the PIT maneuver in a safe surrounding. This was a stretch of highway in which there WEREN’T other drivers. This was the perfect time for officers to use this technique. Are we forgetting the sine qua non test? Had this little immature, non-sensical, horrible decision-making youth NOT ran, he would not have cause himself this harm. Maybe now that he’s paralyzed it’ll teach him a lesson because in the future, he CAN’T run. He CAN’T speed off in a car. Officers of the law are confronted with less-than-secure circumstances in which they must make a split-second decision to cease the predicament they are in. This was no doubt justifiable. This was a clear case of FELONY EVADING. The youth showed absolutely no regard for the safety of others, specifically police officers. Luckily, there were NO bystanders which again presented the ideal circumstance for the police officer to use the PIT maneuver. Had there been bystanders, I can assure you officers would not have used the PIT maneuver. But I guess if I drove recklessly tomorrow and smash into a light pole, I ought to sue the city. How dare they plant a light pole in the exact same spot that I crashed? Come on guys, get real! Harris deserves to be in the situation he is in. All he had to do was pull over, admit he was wrong, sign the citation and be on his merry way.
Looks like the Supreme Court wins again – ding! For that kid to even have the audacity to sue the police dept was absolutely insane. Looks like he’ll be walking down the road of shame.