Police shootings and killings of unarmed civilians arguably qualify as violations of the use-of-force standards that warrant the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators. However, American experience reveals that those involved seldom face any repercussions as the concerned authorities often deem such cases as justifiable. Nonetheless, circumstances under which some of these shootings occur—such as the recent killing of Patrick Warren in Texas—are so appalling that failure to arrest and prosecute constitutes a grave failure of justice.
Nowhere in the world is a police officer shooting an unarmed, mentally-ill man standing at the front of his home acceptable. Unfortunately, as Burke (2021) reports, this exact scenario occurred in Killeen, Texas on January 10, 2021. A police officer was responding to a call for assistance by a mental health professional when he ended up in an altercation with Warren, the individual he was supposed to assist. The officer resorted to deadly force, first a taser, and then turned to his gun when conducted electricity proved ineffective. Although Warren seemed displeased with the officer’s presence at his home, he was neither armed nor so aggressive that the officer may have been apprehensive for his life or others’. Nonetheless, the officer discharged his weapon that caused fatal injuries and killed him, but he is yet to be arrested.
A constitutional threshold constitutes the operative standard for ascertaining the justifiability of police shootings or resorting to deadly force. There are only two permissible circumstances under which police shootings qualify as justifiable: in the defense of life and to avert the escape of a violent felon (Lopez, 2018). The defense-of-life standard can be invoked whenever an officer needs to safeguard their life while the second instance is only operative if designed to stop the fight of a violent individual. Notably, Lopez (2018) explains that the mere existence of an objectively reasonable belief of a threat is sufficient basis for an officer’s resort to deadly force. Therefore, an actual threat doesn’t need to be present. Resort to force is allowed as long as there was a reasonable apprehension of a risk to life or possibility of escape of a violent person like any reasonable officer would have under similar circumstances.
The circumstances underlying Officer Contreras’ shooting of Patrick Warren do not align with the standards that justify resorting to deadly force by law enforcement officers. First, it is noteworthy that the police department had been aware that the responding officer would encounter a mentally unstable individual as it had been indicated in the call for assistance (Burke, 2021). Second, the victim was not armed or aggressive towards the officer, thus, there was no risk to life, whether the officer’s or anyone else. Third, the question of preventing a violent person from fleeing does not arise in the circumstances as the officer had been invited to the household. Accordingly, objectively reasonable grounds to justify the officer’s decision to resort to deadly force do not exist as there is no proof that he perceived any threat at the time of the shooting. The shooting does not meet the requisite standard and is, therefore, unjustifiable.
Police killings of unarmed civilians continue unchecked in the US as evidenced by the recent killing of Patrick Warren in Texas. The victim was shot by a police officer regardless of not posing a threat to the officer or anyone else. Further, he was not a felon, violent in any way, or attempting to escape from lawful custody. Thus, the officer who shot him cannot be said to have held an objectively reasonable belief to justify the resort to deadly force that ended a life.
References
Burke, M. (2021). Texas man fatally shot by police during mental health check, family calls for officer’s arrest. NBC News.
Lopez, G. (2018). Police can use deadly force if they merely perceive a threat. Vox.