Shot Twice in the Back: A Case Tests the ‘Fleeing Felon’ Defense

In Utah this month, Sim Gill, the district attorney in Salt Lake County, sent state legislators recommendations for changing the laws governing the use of force by the police, including that state’s fleeing-felon statute. Mr. Gill, who said he has long examined how use of force statutes conflict with the public’s expectations, concluded that state laws were “more generous” to the police than to the public.

“George Floyd sparked our consciousness in a very visible way, in a way that we can’t simply talk around it, and that is because of the advent of technology and having the facts in your face,” Mr. Gill said.

His recommendations came days after he announced that two officers had acted within state law when they shot an armed man who was running away from them, which led to protests outside his office.

“If we want different outcomes, then we have to change the law,” he said in an interview.

Until last month, the law in Colorado allowed police officers to use deadly force if they “reasonably” believed it was necessary to prevent death or injury. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, signed a law that restricts officers from using deadly force except in cases where someone “poses an immediate threat.”

Colorado and Utah are among other states and towns or cities that have recently announced plans to re-examine standards for the use of deadly force to stop someone who is fleeing from the police, said Raleigh Blasdell, a criminologist at North Central College in Illinois.

“What we are seeing at the local level is police departments are updating and amending their policies to provide citizens with greater protections,” Professor Blasdell said.

Most states, Professor Blasdell said, have tailored their fleeing-felon statutes around the 1985 Supreme Court ruling in Tennessee v. Garner, a case involving a 15-year-old boy who was killed as he fled from a police officer in Memphis even though the officer who shot him was “reasonably sure” he was unarmed.