Officer Michael Rosfeld is now facing murder charges for shooting 17-year-old Antwon Rose as he fled on foot following a car stop
On June 19, East Pittsburgh police stopped a car that fit the description of a car used in a drive-by shooting 13 minutes earlier. Antwon Rose, 17, and another passenger took off and fled on foot. After a short chase, Officer Michael Rosfeld fired several shots, three of which hit Rose in the back.
The driver of the car was arrested. The rear window of the car had been shattered. Two guns were found in the back seat. An empty magazine was found on Rose. This makes it very likely that Rose was the shooter in the drive-by shooting.
Officer Rosfeld is white. Rose was black.
The shooting of Rose enraged the black community. There have been mass protests ever since.
Rosfeld has just been charged with criminal homicide. His problem is that at the time he shot Rose, he did not know about the evidence in the car which indicated that the teenager was the drive-by shooter. Thus he cannot claim Rose posed a serious threat to the public if he were to escape.
Rosfeld did not help his cause either because at first he said that Rose had a gun, but then he changed his story to say the fleeing youth did not have a gun. Welcome to the Graybar Hotel, Michael.
I suspect that if Rose had been white, there would have been no mass protests and Rosfeld would not be facing a murder charge.
2 comments:
Not s fast. The car matched the description of the suspect vehicle in the drive by shooting that occurred just 15 minutes earlier. The rear window was shot out. And when stopped, the occupants all bailed and fled. The question for the court to decide...was this enough information for the officer to reasonably assume that the fleeing suspects posed a threat to innocent citizens.
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Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985)[2], is a civil case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that, under the Fourth Amendment, when a law enforcement officer is pursuing a fleeing suspect, the officer may not use deadly force to prevent escape unless "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."
Tenn. V. Garner
Where the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a threat of serious physical harm, either to the officer or to others, it is not constitutionally unreasonable to prevent escape by using deadly force. Thus, if the suspect threatens the officer with a weapon or there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a crime involving the infliction or threatened infliction of serious physical harm, deadly force may be used if necessary to prevent escape, and if, where feasible, some warning has been given.
“Objective Reasonableness”
A. Graham vs. Connor USSC said to use the following guidelines.
1. What would an equally trained, objective reasonable officer do under like circumstances?
2. Severity of the crime.
3. Does the suspect(s) pose an immediate threat to you and others.
4. Actively resisting arrest.
5. Are they attempting to evade arrest by flight?
6. Judge from the moment force was used.
7. Tense, uncertain, rapidly evolving, split second decisions.
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So the question for the court will be...did the officer reasonably perceive that this suspect...fleeing from a vehicle which had just involved in a drive by shooting....did the suspect pose a threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or anyone else in the community.
The case will be made that he did.
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