'Go Ahead and Take Him Out'
Victor Harris was speeding—going 73 miles per hour in a 55-mph zone, according to police. And instead of pulling over when a police car flashed its lights at him, the 19-year-old tried to get away. Still, ramming him into an embankment and paralyzing him seems excessive. Today the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether Harris should be allowed to sue the officer who rammed him, Coweta County, Georgia, Sheriff's Deputy Timothy Scott. Scott got clearance from his superiors to perform a "precision intervention technique," which involves hitting the suspect's car at an angle to make it spin and stop, but he decided to hit Harris' Cadillac from behind instead because the two cars were going too fast. The issue is whether the maneuver amounted to an "unreasonable seizure" under the Fourth Amendment and, if so, whether Scott should have known that at the time of the chase. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit sided with Harris, concluding that "the use of deadly force is not 'reasonable' in a high-speed chase based only on a speeding violation and traffic infractions where there was little, if any, threat to pedestrians or other motorists as the roads were mostly empty and Harris remained in control of his vehicle."
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
That’s a tough one.
Maybe the cop did violate the 4th amendment?
But the guy who was speeding definitely proved that Darwin’s Laws are in force by running from a cop in Georgia.
Maybe Scott should be sued for using excessive force but he should also be rewarded for attempting to improve the Gene Pool.
The choice faced by the cop seems to be to either do nothing to stop a guy driving fast enough to outrun the cops, and maybe an innocent person gets hurt in an accident; or to try to stop him, and maybe the guy running from the cops gets hurt in an accident.
When someone floors it to try to run from the cops, the risk goes beyond missing $50 in ticket revenue.
I don’t fault the cop at all.
But. But. But. Sheriff John Bunnell told me that running away from the law is running away from responsibility. And the sound effects they use are so real. The PIT move endangers the police and the innocent more than the guilty. Snif. the world is. falling. apart.
And. What happens to my mid day television if World’s Wildest Police Chases, Car Crashes, Mayhem, and Taser Malfunctions is taken off the air?
Will I have to watch… Cops instead?
the horror!
I won’t say that the officer was in the wrong for pulling the PIT maneuver. However, what is the difference between this and the spike strips that are laid down in front of a speeding vehicle? Is it possible that this judgment could open the door for cases where spike strips were used?
“Scott got clearance from his superiors to perform a “precision intervention technique,” which involves hitting the suspect’s car at an angle to make it spin and stop, but he decided to hit Harris’ Cadillac from behind instead because the two cars were going too fast.”
Translation: He (the cop) couldn’t catch him (the victim). More police-blotter tales of dominance and submission.
A tough one. On the one hand, while I don’t know the statistics, it seems to be extreme to resort to such a dangerous maneuver over such a small infraction. Still, the fact that the man was fleeing police pursuit was also dangerous to others on the highways. Moreover, refusing to be pulled over for a speeding ticket suggests that the individual in question might be doing this to conceal other crimes and thus need to be apprehended. To me, the decision would have to boil down to the risks of the PIT move and the availability of alternative techniques (road spikes, helicopter, whatever). I don’t want to be Berkeley and forbid all police chases as being too dangerous, but we don’t want to indulge cops’ resorting to unncessarily forceful tactics out of machismo, either.
…and cops, in addition to everything else, are trained in these kind of maneuvers?
Jimmy:
How about this
also here
The cop has a compelling case, but no one in the article seems to question that he did something he didn’t have permission to do (and presumably the fact that he asked for permission means he was obliged to do so, and that his actions were constrained by what his superior authorized). Moreover, the article appears to be about whether Harris has the right to sue, not whether he ought to win. It seems to me that given what we know, Harris ought to at least be able to present his case in court.
I loath high speed chases because they often injure and kill innocent people. I have no sypathy for this guy though. He put innocent people’s lives in danger by runnning from the cops. No, that does not mean that he deserved this. But, what happened to him is no worse than the risk he put other people in by running from the cops. It is a real problem, if you ban all high speed chases, then the crooks just run from the cops every time and that is no sollution. The only sollution I can see is very strict limits on when and how police can conduct high speed chases and have serious jail time for anyone who engages in a high speed chase. Did this guy deserve to be paralyzed? No. Did he deserve 15 years or so to think about what a dumb little bastard he is? Yes.
“Scott got clearance from his superiors to perform a “precision intervention technique,” which involves hitting the suspect’s car at an angle to make it spin and stop, but he decided to hit Harris’ Cadillac from behind instead because the two cars were going too fast.”
Well, then it’s not a “precision intervention technique” anymore, now is it?
Perhaps the technique shouldn’t be applied unless it can be applied with precision.
Since it isn’t too difficult to track a car these days (especially on the interstate), one wonders what the point of high speed car chases is? After all, the chase will most likely increase the speed of the fleeing subject and it will also probably make their behavior more erratic and dangerous.
What I haven’t seen mentioned here yet, is that Harris sideswiped Scott’s patrol car when trying to escape from a parking lot where Harris was penned in. That escalates things past a “minor traffic violation”.
Volokh.com has some very good coverage of the incident, due to one of the lead bloggers, Orin Kerr, being Supreme Court counsel for Scott. Both parties’ briefs are at that site, they’re worth a read.
But the guy who was speeding definitely proved that Darwin’s Laws are in force by running from a cop in Georgia.
But… but… What does one do if the boys are thirsty in Atlanta, and there’s beer in Texarkana?
You bring it back.
No matter what it takes.
I have no sy[m]pathy for this guy though. He put innocent people’s lives in danger by runnning from the cops.
Which lives? The only way to know for sure is to have statistics on hand, that describe the very same chase over the very same course. A case can also be made that it was the cops that placed people’s lives at stake by insisting on a chase.
It is a real problem, if you ban all high speed chases, then the crooks just run from the cops every time and that is no sollution (sic).
This begs the question by the assumption that only by way of a high-speed chase can police capture the average malcontent. This is however not the case, since there exist other venues of investigation that do not require adrenaline-gushing chases.
“Which lives? The only way to know for sure is to have statistics on hand, that describe the very same chase over the very same course. A case can also be made that it was the cops that placed people’s lives at stake by insisting on a chase.”
It was the cops who insisted on the chase, not this dirt bag who side swiped a cop and took at at high speed? That is an interesting way of looking at it. The person who ran is responsible for the high speed chase. Yes, the police chased, but that is their job, to catch criminals. If an innocent person had been killed in this chase, the criminal, not the cop would be up for murder and rightfully so. You are looking at it completely backwards.
“This begs the question by the assumption that only by way of a high-speed chase can police capture the average malcontent. This is however not the case, since there exist other venues of investigation that do not require adrenaline-gushing chases.”
That is why there should be very strict restrictions on high speed chases. If there is another way to catch him, then use it. If there is a way to track the car from the air rather than chasing him, then do that. It always amazes me how many of these chases are captured by news helicopters. Why not back off and let the helicopter track the car and then nail the guy. Regardless of what your sollution is, people who run at high speed from the police need to go to jail for a very long period of time. If the average malcontent knew he was buying himself 10+ years in jail by running, he would think twice about running.
Scott got clearance from his superiors to perform a “precision intervention technique”
Thus we can infer his two-way radio was working. Lemme see now, which is faster? A speeding car or a radio message? Hmmmm…
One wonders, and I certainly do not know, but is it possible that the police could have just backed off the chase and instead have run Harris’s license plate and arrested him later?
I’m wondering if the officer’s resolve was such that he was going to “win” that high-speed battle, when the war could have been won much more easily.
Also, I’m one of those crazy people who believe that (as did Locke) an individual has a right to defend himself/herself against the government even when that person is objectively in the wrong. It’s a form of self-defense.
Yeah, I think this is a pretty cut and dry case. The guy was seeding, tried to get away from the cops, and they smashed into the guy.
Seems reasonable to me. I don’t think there is anything difficult about this, unless there is some question as to if the guy was actually speeding. Is this the case?
I think the cops, in this case, made the right decision. What I want to know is how the legal system gets so messed up that the cops are being punished for this, but can storm a house shooting up innocent people and don’t get in trouble for that?
Just shows you what short sighted pussies all this new fangaled police techniques have turned our police into.
A good head shot with a .308, or a .30-.30, or hell a high velocity .22 whould have stopped the car with zero chance of law suit from the speeder.
Too Road Warrior for me.
Move it to another profession:
a surgeon is told by his boss to perform a certain procedure
the surgeon botches the procedure when he unilaterally decides, on the fly, that circumstances call for ad libbing the proscribed procedure, and it ends badly
doc’s liable, no?
I don’t particularly support the officer in this case but I definitely have zero support for Harris.
It’s possible for both to be wrong. The officer’s actions being right or wrong don’t, in any way, affect Harris’s responsibility for choosing to assume the risk he did.
As for should he be allowed to sue? In principle, I think everyone should be allowed to sue. I’ll be interested to see what the SCOTUS decrees.
Since this is news I will assume the officer will be sued and lose. Some sharp screechy lawyer will find a way if there is money to make. The police can stop this foolishness in the future by simply allowing all alleged criminals to get away. Law enforcement should be left up to armed citizens. I say kill em all and let God sort em out….what we need is no government at all.
I think TPG has it right. The officer was authorized to use a specific precision maneuver and instead seems to have just rammed into the back of the guy’s car.
this seems neither precise nor authorized.
if you ban all high speed chases, then the crooks just run from the cops every time and that is no sollution. The only sollution I can see …
… is helicopter gunships? Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. For the next few televised high speed chases the cops take the perp out with a rocket right there in the freeway. No one would run, right?
“the use of deadly force is not ‘reasonable’ in a high-speed chase based only on a speeding violation and traffic infractions where there was little, if any, threat to pedestrians or other motorists as the roads were mostly empty and Harris remained in control of his vehicle.”
So I suppose this lunacy was committed “on a closed course with professional drivers”. No big deal.
For the next few televised high speed chases the cops take the perp out with a rocket right there in the freeway. No one would run, right?
“Crater as Deterrent” theory?
Nice but as I learned in my Criminal Justice class so many years ago, cutting people’s hands off is no deterrent for theft, cutting their balls off doesn’t deter rape and the death penalty doesn’t deter murder.
For a blog called “Hit & Run” …
(Possible new subrule for the “for a website named Reason” drinking game?)
I’m going to refrain from posting too much on this because I actually am (marginally) on the cop’s side and for me to defend a cop at length would make my head explode. That would be unfair to my roommate.
I think TPG has it right. The officer was authorized to use a specific precision maneuver and instead seems to have just rammed into the back of the guy’s car.
this seems neither precise nor authorized.
Yessir – if I’m the judge here, I authorize a suit on that and that alone.
Stupid 19 year old got what he deserved. To bad for him and I feel bad for the cop. As bad as some cops behave is no excuse to run from them. The kid exerted force on fellow members of his communinty by running from a cop at high rates of speed in a 1 ton vechile. What would be the story if this idiot had run over a pedestrian? Just because the situation didn’t play out with an inocent being injured does not change the fact the kid decided to use force against others. Let him rot in a wheelchair.
What I want to know is how the legal system gets so messed up that the cops are being punished for this, but can storm a house shooting up innocent people and don’t get in trouble for that?
Easy. The cops in the latter case have taken a page from Social Services and are very careful to pick victims who can’t afford a lawyer & don’t really know their rights or their options.
This 19-year-old is probably some middle-class white kid, makes a big difference. You gotta let those go, or stick to the letter of the law.
…exerted force on fellow members of his communinty [sic]…
…decided to use force against others…
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
did the driver think he was going to outrun the cops, or that they would just let him go?
it’s easy to second-guess the officer in hindsight, and yes, he didn’t perform the manuever exactly as authorized, but Victor Harris is hoist in his own petard. If he had just pulled over, he wouldn’t have been rammed, he wouldn’t be paralyzed.
One of the factors in the Fourth Amendment analysis of whether the use of force to apprehend a fleeing suspect is reasonable is the severity or gravity of the offense he likely has committed. For example, if a motorist is fleeing after conducting a drive by shooting, the application of greater force is reasonable than if the only offense preceding the pursuit is an expired license tag.
The Eleventh Circuit noted that the ramming of Harris’ car could constitute a use of “deadly force” and that a jury could so reasonably conclude. The court accordingly analyzed this situation according to Fourth Amendment restrictions upon a police officer’s use of deadly force.
The employment of deadly force is not an appropriate response to a mere traffic offense. Speeding is not a capital offense. Niether is contempt of cop, regardless of what your average testosterone fueled, badge-totin’ Bubba might have you believe.
The officer who initiated the pursuit (not the civil defendant) had radioed the license tag number of Harris’ car. The Eleventh Circuit noted that the vehicle that Harris was driving was registered in Harris’ name and at his proper address. Had police discontinued the pursuit, they could easily have obtained an arrest warrant for the drive and arrested him at a later time. That, however, would not have produced the same adrenaline rush as rendering a young punk quadriplegic.
Victor Harris was speeding-going 73 miles per hour in a 55-mph zone, according to police. And instead of pulling over when a police car flashed its lights at him, the 19-year-old tried to get away.
Fuck him. Lets reserve our sypathy for casualties of the war on drugs. People who lead police on high speed chases to get out of speeding tickets get whatever they deserve.
Does anyone else have Black Flag songs running through their heads after reading this story?
TV party…
(maybe, Depression, but that’s on the normal soundtrack)
What I mean by force in this case is a 800 lbs to 1 ton vehicle traveling at 73 miles per hour would hit an innocent person with a tremendous amount of force.
Just because the kid didn’t hit someone does not mean that he wasn’t exerting his force (vehicle traveling fast)on others.
Or we could look at it another way. The kid didn’t want to get caught, so he decided to “force” his way out of the situation by going fast and running from a cop. This decision to “force” his way out, forced innocent people on the road into a dangerous situation.
Why couldn’t they just mail him a ticket? That’s what all the cameras are about, aren’t they?
John in Nashville
Deadly force wasnt used….he aint dead.
If he wins a large settlement, paid for by the officer’s employer’s insurance carrier, will he be ineligible for public assistance? Would that lower the tax burden on workin for a livin folk?
brotherben, Officer Scott employed a “deadly force” technique–ramming Harris’ car. I did not suggest that that application of force was fatal in this particular instance; I observed that the United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit, analyzed this use of a tactic, which often results in death, according to the Fourth Amendment restriction on the use of deadly force.
John in Nashville
Deadly force wasnt used….he aint dead.
Shooting someone in the chest is considered deadly force. Shooting someone in the chest is not always fatal.
While I can understand some of the sentiment of the people that say he ran, so he deserved it. What if he was jaywalking and then booked it on foot. Would shooting him to prevent him from getting away (he could knock someone over and hurt them), be appropriate?
I just saw the video on the news. It looks like the cop WAS attempting a PIT maneuver. He hit him on the the very left hand corner of the bumper. The guy skidded off the road and into a ditch. It doesn’t look any different from dozens of PIT videos they’ve shown on tv. I hate cops, but this guy has no case.
David:
So if I understand you correctly, the driver engaged in a “victimless use of force”? To use force on someone, as far as I can tell, there has to be someone to use it on, right?
In your opinion, am I using force on others when I drive on the interstate? After all, if I hit someone, it’d do a lot of damage… Or are you just conflating all of the different definitions of “force” into a meaningless whole?
Oral arguments for Scott v Harris have concluded at the Supreme Court. Transcripts can be found here
A repost, but if you wanted to read the briefs in the case, they can be found in these places: Petitioner’s Brief , Respondent’s Brief , Reply Brief.
All from volokh.com (scroll down till you see the blog post mentioning the case.) There are additional amici briefs there. I just got tired of html coding.
I don’t have anything to do with them or the parties; just thought that all of the parties’ briefs might help inform everyone’s arguments.
If I had a nickel for every “posted speed limit 55mph” mile I have driven at speeds in excess of 73 mph, and a dollar for every time I passed some dawdling geezer on a double yellow line, I’d buy this web site and ban all you “he deserved it” dimwits.
I believe it is very appropriate to review and possibly discipline the officer for his actions, but I don’t see where the kid who fled should be able to sue for his injuries.
His injuries (or worse) were a reasonably forseeable consequence of his choosing to flee from police at high speeds. His injuries seem to me to be overwhelmingly his own damn fault, as he just as easily could have lost control of the vehicle, hit a civilian or a civilian vehicle or lots of other forseeable incidents that could have caused the same or worse injuries to himself.
Cities are an overwhelmingly inviting target for lawsuits because it doesn’t cost the city employees any money when they decide to settle. So cities tend to settle, even in cases where it would seem they couldn’t possibly lose in court.
I’m not sure, what precisely is at issue in this case. If it’s this guys _right_ to sue for his injuries, I think he ought to have it. But there’s no way I think he should win.
Several points:
First, sorry, Grotius, but it is NOT easy to “track a car” except in places like the stretch of I-80 between Wendover and Grantsville (80 miles of mostly-straight, flat highway with no cover and only 7 offramps).
Second, getting someone’s license plate number means that you MAY be able to find the registered owner. If the car is stolen, or has been sold (but not reregistered), or has the wrong plate, you are no closer to finding the bad guy than you were without getting the number.
Third, ramming a car from behind usually only pushes it forward. The PIT maneuver MUST be done at an angle — you try to either force an overcorrection or damage to the rear tire, axle or drive train. The deputy did it wrong.
Fourth, spikes are only useful if you can get the bad guy to drive over them.
Fifth, most high-speed pursuits fail — the bad guy gets away from the cops, at least long enough to dump the car (many are caught later, following containment plans).
Sixth, speeding is a victimless crime, but towing a high-speed pursuit behind you brings the likelihood that there is more going on than just speed. Most of us just pull over, get the lecture, sign the slip and go see the judge. When someone takes off, the automatic assumption is that they have done something that makes them want to run, even if — as in this case — they get racked up in the attempt.
With all of that said, it’s hard to second-guess the cop, but it sounds like a bad situation with no clear-cut good way out. The one thing that I consider a plus is that the only victim is the kid — in essence, HE chose his punishment, and he didn’t take anyone else with him.
I realize that I didn’t address the basic issue.
Yes, he has every right to sue.
I think TPG has it right. The officer was authorized to use a specific precision maneuver and instead seems to have just rammed into the back of the guy’s car.
this seems neither precise nor authorized.
How anyone could deny this guy a lawsuit escapes me. He committed a crime, and probably should do time, but that in no way justifies this gung-ho cop’s actions in this matter. Sometimes two wrongs add up to… two wrongs.
His injuries (or worse) were a reasonably forseeable consequence of his choosing to flee from police at high speeds. His injuries seem to me to be overwhelmingly his own damn fault, as he just as easily could have lost control of the vehicle, hit a civilian or a civilian vehicle or lots of other forseeable incidents that could have caused the same or worse injuries to himself.
You win the “Completely Missed The Point” award of the day. His injuries weren’t caused by himself; they were caused by a cop disregarding procedure and taking it upon himself to use whatever means mecessary to bring down this speeding kid. While the kid certainly deserves to be appropriately punished for whatever crimes his actions warrant punishment (speeding, fleeing, reckless endangerment, etc. to the point I don’t care if this punk ever drove again), there’s a difference between banning this kid from driving for life, and banning this kid FROM FUCKING WALKING for live.
“You win the “Completely Missed The Point” award of the day. His injuries weren’t caused by himself;”
They weren’t? If he had pulled over as he’s required to do by law he wouldn’t have gotten injured. If the officer hadn’t done anything, there wasn’t a good chance that a high speed chase at 90 MPH could result in an accident where _someone_ was likely to suffer injury?
Do you mean if someone starts a fire and a person running from it falls down a flight of stairs and breaks their neck, that the fire starter isn’t overwhelmingly to blame?
The police officer’s actions certainly should be reviewed and action should be taken if he’s found to be in error, but the end result (a crash involving substantial injury to someone) was an easily forseeable consequence of leading police on a high speed chase. In a court of law I can’t imagine anyone finding the speeder to be anything less than at least 90% at fault for his own injuries.
Let’s not forget that we have a 10th Amendment, and that the U.S. Constitution doesn’t make federal judges into police commissioners. Not even General Sherman could have anticipated that restoring Georgia to the Union meant that Georgia’s police would have to be accountable to Monday-morning quarterbacks on the federal bench.
When (as here) the cop admittedly had the right to get this guy off the road, he needs some discretion in his choice of means, without worrying about getting nagged for it afterwards by judicial autocrats.
JF:
His injuries were the direct result of his actions, in that if he hadn’t chosen to rabbit, he wouldn’t have been in a position where a cop would have tried to PIT him.
Yes, it’s too bad that he is paralyzed because of the apparently-botched PIT, but if it gets right down to it, I’d much rather have 100 just like him in wheelchairs — or on slabs — instead of him putting an innocent into a wheelchair while he was trying to get away from the cops.
In other words, he made his free choice to risk his life, and the lives of others, in an attempt to get away from the cops.
The kid should sue. If the cop was negligent, the cop should be raked over the coals for it.
But don’t try to present the kid as an innocent victim, that’s a costume which just doesn’t fit him.
The “why” of his running doesn’t matter — only that he DID, and now he has a price to pay for his stupidity.
Better him paying than you.
They weren’t? If he had pulled over as he’s required to do by law he wouldn’t have gotten injured. If the officer hadn’t done anything, there wasn’t a good chance that a high speed chase at 90 MPH could result in an accident where _someone_ was likely to suffer injury?
And had your hypothetical have occured, I’d be at the front of the line demanding he pay restitution to those he hurt.
Since he didn’t hurt anyone, but the cops paralyzed him, the courts need to weigh the harm he caused as a result of his actions (which, for those of you scoring at home, is zero, no matter the potential he created for harm to others) against the blatant disregard for safety and police procedure displayed by the police officer who paralyzed him. Trust me, had he simply drove his car into a tree and become paralyzed, I’d be laughing at yet another example of the Darwin Effect in action.
Officer Scott should be the bigger man and look at Victor Harris and walk away…walk away.
J Golden Rockwell,
I think if you re-read my post, you’ll find we agree more than we disagree.
I completely agree that this kid needs to be punished. I do not agree that permanent paralysis is the appropriate punishment. Like I just said above, had he ran into a tree on his own while fleeing, I’d feel no regret about his fate. Since a cop decided to go fast and furious on him and risk two lives in a stupid maneuver to end the chase, that becomes a government-sanctioned sentence of life in a wheelchair, which is unacceptable.
Jesus Christ! Have you guys ever seen “Cops” Or “Maximum Exposure”? Cops ram fleeing vehicles all the time. The PIT maneuver is standard procedure. Have you seen the video of this incident? The Cop hits his right corner fender to the speeders left corner. The guy fishtails and goes into the ditch. It was a bad PIT. That’s all. Now what responsibility the police department has I’ll leave up to others.
JF:
We differ in one major way.
I figure that the kid was asking for death. Anything less that happened to him is God’s kindness to fools.
Just because the cop botched the PIT doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t have tried it. If his botched PIT was the result of negligence, then let the penalties be high — but if the kid’s day in court ends with a jury giving him no more than twelve shaking heads, so be it.
And had your hypothetical have occured, I’d be at the front of the line demanding he pay restitution to those he hurt.
Since he didn’t hurt anyone, but the cops paralyzed him, the courts need to weigh the harm he caused as a result of his actions (which, for those of you scoring at home, is zero, no matter the potential he created for harm to others) against the blatant disregard for safety and police procedure displayed by the police officer who paralyzed him.
What silliness. I suppose if I started walking down a crowded street swinging an axe and a cop shot me you’d say “I’d agree that he should be punished if he had chopped off someones head but he ended up causing zero harm.”
The first priority of any cop should’ve been to get the stupid punk to stop driving. When you are putting other people in danger through your own recklessness your life is meaningless compared to the potential damage you can cause.
“It was a bad PIT.”
I’d rather have an Angelina Jolie.
I’m still amazed people here are defending the idea of cops chasing someone for speeding, let alone ramming him! I shudder to think what they’d propose for illegal U-turns.
Did any of y’all read the briefs that Gray Ghost posted? The PIT maneuver must apparently be performed at 35 m.p.h. or less, otherwise (surprise, surprise) it’s extraordinarily likely to result in serious injury and/or death. This cop (completely untrained in PIT, I might add) tried it at ninety. Deadly force, thy name is 90-mile-an-hour PIT.
Also, if you read the briefs, there’s a case to be made that this incident should be chalked up under “Drug War Casualties” as well.
…and it’s not because the victim had any.