'No opportunity' to de-escalate: Use-of-force experts say Columbus officer obeyed training in shooting Ma'Khia BryantAn Ohio criminal-justice professor who studies the fatal use of force by law-enforcement officers didn't hesitate to render an opinion after watching body-camera video of a Columbus police officer fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl Tuesday afternoon on the city's Southeast Side.
"My first impression is that the officer was legally justified in using deadly force," said Philip Stinson, a Bowling Green State University professor who has compiled nationwide statistics on fatal shootings that have led to criminal charges against officers.
"It's a terribly tragic situation, and my heart goes out to the girl and her family and friends," he told The Dispatch Wednesday.
"But from looking at the video, it appears to me that a reasonable police officer would have had a reasonable apprehension of an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death being imposed against an officer or someone else. That's the legal standard."James Scanlon, a retired Columbus Division of Police SWAT officer who spent 33 years with the division, has since trained officers, and served as an expert witness at trials in use-of-force cases, agreed with Stinson's assessment of the video.
"An officer is justified in using deadly force if his life or the life of someone else is at risk," Scanlon said Wednesday.
"Few would argue that there weren't at least two lives there that were at serious risk."
In this case, Scanlon said, Reardon wasn't trying to protect himself, "but to save the life of someone he doesn't even know...
It's a shame that no one has recognized that that officer, in all likelihood, saved one or more lives."
U.S. Supreme Court's Graham vs. Connor decisionThe legal standard by which an officer's use of force must be measured was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Graham vs. Connor decision.
The ruling, issued in 1989, gives police officers significant leeway in the use of deadly force when they perceive that a person poses an an imminent threat to officers or others, and limits the second-guessing of that decision.
The ruling requires that an officer's actions be "judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, rather than with the 20/20 vision of hindsight."Any evaluation of an officer's actions must include
"allowance for the fact that police officers are often forced to make split-second judgments – in circumstances that are tense, uncertain and rapidly evolving," the court found.
Stinson said Tuesday's shooting is
"a good reminder that officers sometimes have to make split-second, life-or-death decisions in violent street encounters... These situations can escalate in a matter of milliseconds, as we saw here."https://eu.dispatch.com/story/news/crime/2021/04/22/columbus-police-shooting-makhia-bryant-appears-lawful/7318300002/
