Dear Friends,                                                                                        Know the law!

In Tennessee v Garner (1985), the Supreme Court limited the fleeing felon rule to non-lethal force in most cases: Deadly force “may not be used unless necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious bodily harm to the officer or others.”

The fleeing felon rule is an ancient element of the common law, it permits the use of force up to and including deadly force when a person suspected of a felony is in clear flight. Tennessee v Garner humanizes the rule – though why did it take until 1985? And then, of course, there’s lots of ambiguity.

Right now it all turns on the “officer” having “probable cause”. The ruling assumes that the “officer” knows how to figure out if there is “probable cause”. Even with the FBI, and well-established police departments across the country this is a very big if. With ICE and CBP agents, untrained, uneducated thugs, the only reasonable assumption is that they are not only incapable of but also unwilling to do any figuring out at all.

But the ICE authorities do seem to have given their goons an invaluable weapon: when you’ve murdered someone say that you had probable cause to think that they were a potentially deadly threat to you and/or others!

This is what the ICEman who murdered Joan Sebastián Guerrero claims. ICE and ICE agents have consistently lied about violent encounters, so there is no reason whatsoever to believe this man: all the more because Guerrero was not the person they were hunting. 

So: Tennessee v Garner is vital in holding ICE and other Federal agencies to account. The “probable cause” part of the ruling is a problem. In the case of crimes by ICE and other federal agencies, up to and including murder, constant vigilance, phone at the ready, when in doubt press the record button, are a beginning. The videos of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretty destroyed any claim for the legitimacy of ICE and its actions.

But remember Tennessee v Garner: “Deadly force ‘may not be used unless’ …” yes, “unless”, but the normal case is it is illegal to shoot a fleeing suspect – and remember, the “suspect” in this case was someone else entirely. And then: shooting a fleeing suspect almost automatically means shooting them in the back. I think there’s a very common revulsion against shooting people in the back, for those of us who grew up on Westerns it’s especially strong.

Know the Law. Use it.

PS For vital updates on the murder of Joan Sebastián Guerrero, and also for ongoing recognition of the people of Maine and their example to all of us in the struggle against authoritarianism, see Amy Macdonald’s Substack, Maine Matters.

Love and solidarity,

            Bobby

The Federal government no longer exists.