A group of police officers arrested an armed suspect who appeared to be experiencing mental illness. During the arrest, a cover officer struck the suspect’s head and held his foot on the suspect’s neck for approximately 20 seconds while other officers attempted to restrain the suspect.
The city retained independent use-of-force experts who concluded that the officer’s tactics were unreasonable, inconsistent with department training, and violated department’s use of force policies. The city provided the officer his due process rights and terminated his employment. The officer appealed.
At the appeal hearing, both the city and the officer provided extensive expert testimony regarding police tactics, training standards, and the reasonableness of the force the officer used. The city presented evidence that its officers are: 1) trained to avoid strikes to the head and neck area; and 2) not trained to use boot strikes or foot restraints on prone subjects. The Hearing Officer ultimately credited the testimony of the city’s independent experts over that of the officer’s expert. The Hearing Officer found that the officer acted outside his training and used unreasonable force against a prone suspect.
The Hearing Officer further concluded that the evidence showed that the officer used deadly force without any imminent threat that justified that level of force under department policy. Although the suspect was actively resisting, that resistance did not present an immediate threat necessary to justify the use of deadly force, particularly because multiple officers were already restraining the suspect.
In upholding the termination, the Hearing Officer also found that the city provided all required procedural protections, including conducting an independent investigation and giving a pre-disciplinary Skelly conference. The Hearing Officer rejected the officer’s statute-of-limitations and procedural challenges under the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act.
Based on the totality of the evidence, the Hearing Officer concluded that the city properly determined that the officer’s conduct posed a risk to the public service and recommended that the termination be sustained in full.