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| US Supreme Court rejects police-force case, justifies cop immunity |
| 2017-04-25 |
| [RT] The US Supreme Court will not review a case in which lower courts had decided that a Texas cop’s version of events – involving the officer shooting an unarmed man in the back – are “undisputed facts” that effectively block a jury trial. The case, Ricardo Salazar-Limon v. City of Houston, hinges on Houston police officer Chris Thompson’s version of events regarding a 2010 traffic stop during which Thompson shot an unarmed Ricardo Salazar-Limon in the back, leaving him partially paralyzed. The officer said he feared for his life when he shot Salazar-Limon. Salazar-Limon sued, seeking a jury trial to decide the validity of Thompson’s claims. At issue is whether a court could accept the officer’s version of events as “undisputed fact” and grant summary judgment to Thompson, effectively avoiding a full trial on Salazar-Limon’s excessive force claims. "The police officer didn’t have the right to do this," Salazar-Limon told the Houston Chronicle in 2013. "I didn’t abuse him. I didn’t insult him. I didn’t try to hit him or do anything against him for him to use that kind of force." Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented over the Supreme Court's decision to let stand a lower court's dismissal of the suit. She wrote in a dissent supported by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the court's refusal of the case continues a "disturbing trend" of protecting cops from lawsuits and bad behavior. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 The best description of what happened are found in the case documents embedded in the article; the brief, the reply, and the SCOTUS summary. It basically is a "he said, he said" case and who's version do you believe. There were three others in the car with Salazar-Limon; Officer Thompson faced a potentially very dangerous situation. The SCOTUS majority decision hinged on whether Salazar-Limon reached into his waistband; a fact he did not deny. Things for Officer Thompson could have easily gone the way they did for Constable Darrell Lunsford - Nacogdoches County, Texas. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2017-04-25 09:55 |