A Supreme Court precedent that was reaffirmed just last year may not bode well for the immigration officer who killed Renee Good in Minneapolis last week, according to a legal expert.
President Donald Trump's administration rushed to justify Good's killing shortly after the shooting occurred. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called Good a "domestic terrorist" after the shooting, and Trump said she was being "disrespectful" to officers. They also accused Good of "weaponizing" her car against Ross, and provided isolated clips as video evidence. However, witness testimony and video recordings appear to contradict the government's evidence.
If the shooting is challenged in the courts, Cynthia Lee, a professor of law at George Washington University, argued in a column for Slate that the Supreme Court may not be on Ross's side.
Specifically, the high court may take issue with the government's assertion that Ross felt his life was in imminent danger in the moment he pulled the trigger.
"In assessing whether a law enforcement agent’s use of deadly force was reasonable or excessive, the court this past summer rejected the 5th Circuit’s narrow 'moment of threat' doctrine—which stated that the only thing that matters in determining whether an officer reasonably fears for their life in a use-of-force situation is the moment of the shooting itself—as inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment," Lee wrote.
Lee added that Good's death was "completely preventable," and Ross made several moves that are against the department policy, like placing himself in front of a moving car and shooting at a moving vehicle.
"The court, in Barnes v. Felix, rejected this narrow time-framing approach and repeated what it had held in Graham v. Connor: In assessing the reasonableness of an officer’s use of force, one must consider the totality of circumstances," Lee wrote.
