Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man who was unarmed at the time he was killed by police in Akron, Ohio, last week, was shot at least 60 times, authorities said over the weekend, when they released body camera footage of the shooting.
The sheer number of bullets that were fired by as many as eight officers involved in the shooting has prompted renewed questions from politicians and activists who are criticizing what they view as excessive use of force by police.
Law enforcement and experts in police law who have viewed body cam footage of the shooting say that the officers’ response reflects standard police training.
“Officers are trained to shoot until the threat they perceive, and or reasonably believe is present, has ended,” said Lance LoRusso, a lawyer who specializes in use-of-force cases.
But other experts warn that the U.S. police training lags behind other countries when it comes to addressing the psychological and physiological aspects of use-of force.
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Legally, the number of shots doesn’t matter in such cases, LoRusso noted. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed that, under the Fourth Amendment, “if officers are justified in firing at a suspect in order to end a severe threat to public safety, they need not stop shooting until the threat has ended.” It’s up to courts to decide whether the officers’ assessment of the threat was reasonable.
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Haberfeld said that, generally speaking, police training in the U.S. is behind some other countries when it comes to addressing the physiological components in use-of-force situations.
While proper use of force can be taught to officers in about 17 weeks, she said, “this is something that requires months upon months of training, and they simply are not getting it.”
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Article URL : https://www.npr.org/2022/07/04/1109648170/akron-police-use-of-force