A Texas Cop Endangered Himself by Jumping Onto a Moving Car. Then He Shot the Driver.
On a Thursday afternoon in April 2016, a 24-year-old man named Ashtian Barnes was driving his girlfriend’s rental car on the Sam Houston Tollway in Harris County, Texas, when he was pulled over by a traffic enforcement officer. The officer, Roberto Felix Jr., stopped Barnes because the license plate of the rental car had been linked to toll violations by another driver. About three minutes into the stop, Barnes began to drive away. Felix reacted by jumping onto the door sill of the car with his gun drawn. Within two seconds, perceiving a threat to himself as the car accelerated, Felix fatally shot Barnes.
The offenses that led to the traffic stop, which had not even been committed by Barnes, were trivial, and Felix himself created the danger to which he responded by killing Barnes. That use of deadly force was plainly unreasonable, Barnes’ mother, Janice Hughes Barnes, argued in a federal civil rights lawsuit against Felix.
Although that conclusion might seem like a no-brainer, a federal judge dismissed the case, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld that decision last January. Both courts were bound by 5th Circuit precedent to focus on “the moment of the threat” that Felix confronted, ignoring both the nature of the stop and the officer’s recklessness in jumping onto the car. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide whether that approach, which has been embraced by four circuits and rejected by eight, is consistent with the Fourth Amendment.
To assess whether a use of force is “objectively reasonable” under the Fourth Amendment, the Supreme Court explained in the 1985 case Tennessee v. Garner, judges should consider “the totality of the circumstances,” paying “careful attention to the facts and circumstances of each particular case.” The Court said relevant factors include “the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight.”
That case involved a suspected burglar, Edward Garner, who was shot while fleeing police. In such circumstances, the Court held, the use of deadly force is unconstitutional “unless it is necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.”
Like Garner, Barnes was unarmed and did not plausibly pose “a significant threat of death or serious physical injury” to the general public. And unlike Garner, Barnes was not suspected of a felony or even an arrestable offense. Under the 5th Circuit’s “moment of threat” standard, however, those circumstances were irrelevant. So was everything that happened before the two seconds in which Felix decided to shoot Barnes.
When Felix turned on his emergency lights, Barnes pulled over to the median on the left side of the tollway. Felix parked behind Barnes and approached the driver’s side window. When Felix asked for Barnes’ driver’s license and proof of insurance, the 5th Circuit noted, “Barnes replied that he did not have the documentation and that the car had been rented a week earlier in his girlfriend’s name.” Seeing Barnes “digging around” in the car, Felix told him to stop. Claiming to smell marijuana (which a subsequent search did not find), Felix asked if Barnes had anything illegal in the car, at which point Barnes “turned off the vehicle, placing his keys near the gear shift.” Barnes “told Officer Felix that he ‘might’ have the requested documentation in the trunk of the c
Article from Reason.com
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