It Isn't Much to Ask That Cops Have a Higher Standard for Killing People
Stephon Clark lived and died in Sacramento. When the 22-year-old father of two was shot and killed by local cops after a foot chase in the spring of 2018, it provoked the largest national uproar over a police killing of an unarmed black man since the groundswell of protests that began with the death of Michael Brown and the Ferguson uprising five years ago this week. The Sacramento officers who took Clark’s life were not charged with any crime.
It didn’t happen in Rep. Ro Khanna’s district, but it was close enough. The Philadelphia-born Democratic Congressman representing the nearby 17th District of California recalled what he did as he tried to make sense of Clark’s death.
“It seemed just like another case of a young man’s life being taken without any rationale,” Khanna told Rolling Stone Friday in a phone interview. “And so after Stephon Clark, I had a conversation over breakfast with Reverend [Al] Sharpton. He said, ‘Look, if you really want to do something, this is what’s consequential: Change the actual standard. The ghost of Rehnquist still haunts us. Go propose federal legislation to change the standard.’”
What Sharpton was referring to was the varying measure of determining what is and what isn’t excessive force by law enforcement. The “ghost” he spoke of is the unanimous 1989 Graham v. Connor decision under then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist. That ruling ostensibly established an “objectively reasonable” standard for excessive use-of-force claims under the Fourth Amendment, which protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures. The ruling has been more elastic in practice, often allowing officers to escape legal and even departmental sanction for killings and heinous abuses.
Both Khanna and Rep. Lacy Clay of Missouri, who represents Ferguson, are now trying to create a law that actually honors the spirit of the Graham v. Connor decision: establish a national standard for the use of force by police. The PEACE Act would “change the use of force to be a last resort, rather than a first resort, and require officers to employ de-escalation techniques,” according to their joint statement.
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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/it-isnt-much-to-ask-that-cops-have-a-higher-standard-for-killing-people-870616/
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