Before the Final Frame: When Police Missteps Create Danger

[GMDino]

Interesting look at some of these types of incidents.

We so often say on this board to wait until we see all the video/evidence.  Looking back like this, I think, helps.

From the article:

Quote:A New York Times visual investigation reviewed footage from 120 vehicle stops over the last five years in which police officers killed motorists who were not brandishing a gun or knife or being pursued for violent crimes.


We found a striking pattern. In dozens of incidents, footage shows, officers made tactical mistakes that put themselves in positions of danger — walking into the path of a car, reaching into a window, jumping onto a moving vehicle — then used lethal force to defend against that danger.

Criminologists call this “officer-created jeopardy.” But it often goes unexamined in deadly-force cases.

Many courts instruct prosecutors and juries to consider only the instant in which an officer uses force — what’s known as the “final frame” of the encounter. The narrow focus on that moment protects police officers and agencies from legal liability.

Proponents of the final-frame approach point to a landmark Supreme Court decision, Graham v. Connor, which says courts should not second-guess the “split-second” judgments officers make in the heat of the moment.

But some legal scholars and policymakers are pushing to expand beyond the final-frame approach, in other words, to roll back the film to the beginning of the encounter. Scrutinizing the entire incident, they argue, aligns with another part of Graham v. Connor that instructs courts to consider the “totality of circumstances.”

“It doesn't necessarily mean all police officers are going to be found guilty because the jury is looking at this wider frame,” said Cynthia Lee, a law professor at George Washington University. “My hope is that by having jurors consider these sorts of things, that it will encourage police on the ground to change behavior in a way that will make everybody safer.”

(BOLD mine)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/30/video/police-traffic-stops-danger-video.html?referringSource=articleShare

Way too long to copy and paste and it would take away from the videos used (some graphic).  

[BigPapaKain]

Won't matter. They'll still have qualified immunity and walk more or less every time.

[Dill]

(10-31-2021, 11:24 AM)GMDino Wrote: But some legal scholars and policymakers are pushing to expand beyond the final-frame approach, in other words, to roll back the film to the beginning of the encounter. Scrutinizing the entire incident, they argue, aligns with another part of Graham v. Connor that instructs courts to consider the “totality of circumstances.”

I can see how this "final frame approach" may be at work in many self defense cases, including the Rittenhouse defense now under way.

We need to reconsider whether the public is really protected by refusal to consider the totality of circumstances.