As noted in Chapter 2, when a police misconduct victim
is assaulted, he or she may have a common law cause of
action for assault and battery and/or a civil rights action for
excessive force. In either case, the main issue will be
whether or not the officer used “reasonable” force.
(Another element in battery cases is lack of consent, but it
would be a rare case indeed where the plaintiff consented to
the officer’s force.)
In general, the standard of what constitutes
“reasonable” force is whether a reasonable officer under the
same circumstances would have concluded that use of
lesser force would suffice to protect him or herself, and
where lesser force, in fact, would have sufficed. The list in
Chapter 2 sets forth instances where courts have held police
conduct constitutes excessive force.
The main factors that are relevant to determining
whether force used in making an arrest is excessive or, on
the contrary, reasonable are as follows:
· the seriousness of the crime for which the arrest was
made;
· how much danger the suspect posed to the safety of
the officers or to others (e.g., was the suspect
intoxicated, had he been handcuffed, how many
officers were on the scene);
