Talk:Deadly force

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Should contain at links to, and perhaps discussion of, deadly force in the context of police action, self defence &c. --141.219.41.163 18:55 Feb 2, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger of "Legal Opinions" section from PIT maneuver

The result was merge from PIT_maneuver#Legal_opinions. -- Terry Carroll 02:10, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm proposing to move the Legal opinions section in the article PIT maneuver into this article. That section discusses three court cases involving police vehicular chases as deadly force, but in none of them was the PIT manuever actually used, making the discussion inappropriate for that article.

With respect to the Harris case, the decision in that case makes clear that the PIT was not employed:

Following respondent's shopping center maneuvering, which resulted in slight damage to Scott's police car, Scott took over as the lead pursuit vehicle. Six minutes and nearly 10 miles after the chase had begun, Scott decided to attempt to terminate the episode by employing a "Precision Intervention Technique ('PIT') maneuver, which causes the fleeing vehicle to spin to a stop." Brief for Petitioner 4. Having radioed his supervisor for permission, Scott was told to "'[g]o ahead and take him out.'" Harris v. Coweta County, 433 F. 3d 807, 811 (CA11 2005). Instead, Scott applied his push bumper to the rear of respondent's vehicle.¹

¹Scott says he decided not to employ the PIT maneuver because he was "concerned that the vehicles were moving too quickly to safely execute the maneuver." Brief for Petitioner 4. Respondent agrees that the PIT maneuver could not have been safely employed. See Brief for Respondent 9. It is irrelevant to our analysis whether Scott had permission to take the precise actions he took.

See [1] (emphasis added).

With respect to the Adams case, again, there was no use of the PIT. The police car in that case "rammed the automobile several times." Also, the Adams case is probably a lousy one to cite. In Harris v. Coweta County, the same court (the 11th Circuit) strongly limited Adams... and Harris v. Coweta County is the same case that went to the Supreme Court as Scott v. Harris, discussed above. So citing Adams is pretty shaky ground, and a poor case to which to point readers who may not have the means to discover and unravel the subtleties of the intersecting case law.

With respect to the Donovan case, again, no use of the PIT. In that case, Zirbes, the officer being sued, participated in a roadblock. A motorcycle was being chased by another police officer, lost control, and became airborne, hitting Zirbes' stationary car.

In the meantime, I'm going to clean up this section a bit, regardless.