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.
Exactly. The First Principles are ALL IGNORED-—as we argue pathetic little details of a System which is TOTALLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL and denies the fundamental Natural Rights of the people. It is the Natural Duty to protect oneself and Natural family==never the police’s Natural Right.
It is why I quit listening to Rush, Hannity, etc. a decade ago....They never address the First Principles. It is all as Ray Bradbury said—just a bunch of distraction and addictions (MSM), the bread and circuses to keep us from the Truth (God) (Hegelian Dialectic/Overton Window) so our Constitution can be obliterated (as it now has been). Our Foundeing Documents were thrown out in 1913 by a bribed, Rothschild-controlled Pres. Wilson and we now are totally spied on with our perceptions all targeted and controlled.
Until we get rid of the EVIL, unconstitutional “System” and agencies (CFR/IRS/NSA, etc) starting with the Federal Reserve and Marxist Income Tax Act—we will never be free again. WE are controlled and herded and programmed now by a few godless psychopaths—esp. our children who are Mind Controlled (conditioned/brainwashed) if they are in public schools and watch TV/computers. They have artificial emotions fed into them constantly as free association and free play are obliterated as is the Natural Family-—the ONLY things which create “thinking for self” and creativity and understanding of Natural Law (Rationality, science/Reality).
its terrible that cops get attacked...
but honestly, they seem to just shoot for absolutely no reason...
being drunk, on drugs, mentally incompetent, suicidal,etc should not be reason to shoot someone...
no dice on this one...cop clearly wrong and an idiotic and criminal imo ..
smaller maybe, but quicker to resort to deadly force?....prove it..IIRC, it seems most bad shootings in the last several yrs have been made by men..
bet the cops had a few good drinks over those killings..the good old boys club....like shooting a buck...
Lethal force can be applied with a pistol or any number of other weapons or objects. Lethal force can even be applied with bare hands.
The point is that the police didn’t apply lethal force in this case.
I can’t figure out whether you are being stubborn or just too dunb to understand.
Deadly force, also known as lethal force, is force that is likely to cause either serious bodily injury or death to another person. In most jurisdictions, the use of deadly force is justified only under conditions of extreme necessity as a last resort, when all lesser means have failed or cannot reasonably be employed.
Firearms, bladed weapons, explosives, and vehicles are among those weapons the use of which is considered deadly force. The use of non-traditional weapons in an offensive manner, such as a baseball bat, sharp pencil, tire iron or other, may also be considered deadly force.[1]
Correct.
And in this case, deadly force was not used. The officer was obviously skilled enough to target his shots so as to avoid causing death or serious injury.
The Supreme Court agrees with me.
I do 'believe' that cops ARE allowed to 'boss people around'.
As for the 'not doing anything'; well; something was being done in this instance; wasn't it.
Now then; back to my question:
"What would YOU do" if someone had not done what you'd told them to do; even with sugar?
And this is EXACTLY the response the media WANTS you to have!
Shoot someone in the ass four times and let me know if you get out of being charged with using deadly force. According to you it is no big deal since she lived through the attempted execution.
At least get your facts straight:
Bullets hit her in the hip, leg, arm and groin area, said Hughes’ attorney, Vince Rabago.
Oh, that’s way different then.
You do believe that cops can boss you around?
Where in the any Constitution, state or federal, does it say they can do that?
So, you’re just a sheep that will lay down at the slightest suggestion, request or order from a cop? You do not care about your rights? You do know that once a cop orders you to do something, it starts dealing with the 4th Amendment against unreasonable search and seizure? You do know that you the police cannot do that unless they have probably cause?
I really hate to say it, but if you’re willing to give up your rights to any cop, when you’re not doing anything wrong, you’re exactly the guy of person the Democrat’s are glad to have around.
And as I stated. if they’ve done nothing wrong, as a police officer, I don’t have the authority to tell them what to do.
Youtube and Google can be your friend, believe it or not. You might want to do some research on the powers of police.
Nope.
I happen to be a realist that looks at life the way it IS.
I might have all the law and lights and rights-of-way and everything else on my side when I go thru the intersection; but if I ignore the fact that a speeding cement truck is blasting thru on RED...
Oh; you've STILL not answered just what YOU have done when folks have disobeyed YOUR orders.
Surely they were not ALL sheep in those shitty situations you inferred up thread.
Let me try to put this another way....
When I had probable cause to do something...because a crime had been or was about to be committed and the person was involved in a someway...something that didn’t exist in this case...I did what was necessary.
When I was in the presence of people THAT...WERE...NOT...BREAKING....THE...LAW...I...DID...NOT...ORDER...THEM...TO...DO...ANYTHING...AS...I....WAS... LEGALLY...NOR....HAD...ANY....JUSTIFICATION...OR...AUTHORITY....TO....GIVE...THEM...ANY....ORDER...OR...REQUEST
AGAIN....IF....THEY....DIDN’T...DO....ANYTHING....CRIMINAL...I...WOULD...HAVE...NO...REASON...TO...APPROACH...THEM...OR...SPEAK...TO....THEM.
I hope that by typing like that, it is a way for me to say it slower, so you can understand that they police can’t just walk up to you or anyone else and just start telling you to do something.
I should have been done, earlier. But, I’m done.
HMMMmmm...
And this necessariness manifested itself; how?
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