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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   32971 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 5, 2026

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I'm not claiming to know exactly what legal standard applies in this case, but normally, when there's a threat, you have a duty to flee.

This depends on the state. But even in states like Minnesota where you have a duty to retreat

  1. It typically does not apply to police officers in the course of their duty

  2. Fleeing has to be safely possible. Not likely to be the case when a car is aimed at you and accelerating towards you.

  1. I don't know the law, but there must be some limits on what the police can do to put themselves into dangerous situations. For example, a police officer cannot leap into the path of a vehicle driving down the road and shoot the law-abiding driver. The only reason I can think of that the duty to flee would not apply to a police officer is that they must remain present to ensure the safety of others. Police are not supposed to stand in front of cars to try to stop them. I would be surprised if that didn't somehow undermine the self-defence argument. No part of what he did contributed to anyone's safety. Everyone would have been better off with him not in front of the vehicle. Shooting her didn't even help to stop the car. Had he remained in front of the car, he still would been hit.

  2. Fleeing was safely possible. We know this because he safely fled, even after delaying his attempt to do so until the very last second, even leaning over the hood to ensure he got a good shot of her face. I can see how he might not have realized in the split second between the car moving and when he fired, but the car was not aimed at him nor accelerating towards him. It began aimed at him and turned away from him. He was clear of the car when he took his first shot.

I don't know the law, but there must be some limits on what the police can do to put themselves into dangerous situations.

This hasn't yet gotten a definitive answer from the courts.

We do not address here the different question [officer, defendant, appellee] Felix raises about use-of-force cases: whether or how an officer’s own “creation of a dangerous situation” factors into the reasonableness analysis. As in another of our recent Fourth Amendment cases, that issue is not properly before us. The courts below never confronted the issue, precisely because their inquiry was so time-bound. In looking at only the two seconds before the shot, they excluded from view any actions of the officer that allegedly created the danger necessitating deadly force. So, to use the obvious example, the courts below did not address the relevance, if any, of Felix stepping onto the doorsill of [suspect, plaintiff, appellant] Barnes’s car. And because they never considered that issue, it was not the basis of the petition for certiorari. The question presented to us was one of timing alone: whether to look only at the encounter’s final two seconds, or also to consider earlier events serving to put those seconds in context.

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