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in fear for their lives. She died on the scene. A civil case was filed, and the judge ruled that there was enough evidence for the case to be submitted to a jury, as the officers had violated Graham, and denied the motion to dismiss. Not good news for the officers.
However, the appellate court disagreed and clearly took ex- ception to the judge’s analysis. The appeals court first stated that the facts of the incident were not in question, as the entire incident was depicted on video. The appeals court noted that the officers had in fact testified that they believed the wom- an was turning with the weapon toward them, and these ac- tions posed an immediate threat to their safety. The lower court judge had slowed down the video and begun to analyze each movement of the gun-wielding woman and second-guess the officers. The appellate court stated, “We are troubled by the district court’s use of ‘screen shots’ to analyze the dashcam videos. By relying on screen shots, a court would violate the teaching of Graham against judging the reasonableness of a particular use of force based upon 20/20 hindsight.” The court went on to state that the “deputies’ perspective did not include the leisurely stop-action viewing of the real-time situation that they encountered. To rest a finding of reasonableness on a lux- ury that they did not enjoy is unsupported by any clearly es- tablished law.” In essence, the appellate court reasserted the ruling of Graham and cautioned courts against slowing down videos and second-guessing police officers.
What this means to our members who are before courts and, most importantly, the Police Board, is speculative at best. If judges, COPA and members of the Police Board stop ignoring the absolutely chaotic and challenging environment police of- ficers are faced with during an officer-involved shooting, we should have success. However, the best advice in Chicago may be to not hold one’s breath.
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