States United Democracy Center
States United Democracy Center
Recently listening to a 2021 national update on police reforms, I heard a police “expert” discuss the impact that Colorado’s Senate Bill 20-217 had on the “fleeing felon” rule. He incorrectly described the pre-2020 fleeing felon rule, announced in Tennessee v. Garner (1985), as “essentially say[ing] that an officer can use deadly force to stop a fleeing felon” and that SB 20-217 changed this rule. This misstatement from a “police expert” in a national presentation is very concerning and potentially deadly. Hopefully, your law enforcement jurisdiction employs an experienced police chief and legal advisor that would spot this serious error.
Domestic disturbances all too often involve an angry and dangerous intimate partner or ex-partner and then a call for police assistance, saying, “Hey, can I get somebody to come over to my house, my ex-husband is in the garage, he will not leave, he’s drunk and it’s going to get ugly real quick.” That was the 911 call made on August 12, 2016 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The dispatcher then said, “If we send somebody out there, he will go to jail for being intoxicated in public, if that’s what you want to happen.” “Yes, that is.”