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Thomas Lawe
Malcolm Campbell
UWRT 1103
9 November 2016
But He was Only a Kid: Why Police Use Lethal Force
On September 20th, 2016 Keith Lamont Scott was shot dead by Officer Brentley Vinson
of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police. His family claims that he was innocent of any crime, that
he was shot dead for being black while waiting to pick up his daughter. The police account of
the shooting reports that Scott had a gun, refused to comply with officers, and was an imminent
threat to the life of the officers attempting to arrest him for possession of marijuana and an
illegally obtained gun. The district attorney has yet to bring the case before a grand jury for
indictment, but for several days afterwards there where major protests and riots in the city.
Whatever the result of the investigation, Keith Lamont Scott is not the first person to die at the
hands of police in the last year, or even the hundredth. Between 458 and over a thousand people
are killed by US police forces annually. It is difficult to know for sure the exact number because
the Department of Justice does not require police departments to report all officer involved
shootings. Some of the others killed by police are familiar to the public: Michael Brown, Eric
Garner, Tamir Rice, or any of the dozens of others in the news recently. Others died out of the
public eye, like Rekia Boyd, Aki Gurley, Antonio Zambrano-Montes, and literally hundreds of
others (Deadly). Every week it seems that one someone dies at the hands of police, justified or
not, and their deaths bring civil unrest and a host of questions. Why do police resort to lethal
force so frequently? Is it training? Is it more common with minorities? Who is responsible for
these deaths? From CNN to the White House to Amnesty International, people are searching for

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the answers to these questions and a way to end the bloodshed. Psychologists and sociologists
have been working for literal decades to examine the reasons for the differences in police
treatment of minorities.

The frequent lethality of American police forces stem from three major

areas: poor accountability, some degree of racial bias, and high stress decision making coupled
with less than stellar training.
What happens when an officer kills someone while on the job? Due to the nature of
police forces in the US, there is no universal procedure for determining whether the use of lethal
force was justified. In fact, in nine states and Washington D.C. there are no legal statutes
relating to police use of lethal force. In other states, the statutes are so vague and weak that they
might as well be nonexistent (Deadly). However, there are common procedures in most police
departments that are not legally required or enforced following a shooting by an officer. Most
are similar to the procedure for dealing with an officer involved shooting in North
Carolina. First, the officer in question is relieved of his weapon, which is put in evidence. The
officer is then sequestered in the police station and is supposed to speak to no one except his/her
attorney. The investigation of the shooting is treated as any other homicide would: evidence is
collected, witnesses interviewed, the officer makes a statement. As far as most courts are
concerned, the word of a sworn officer of the law is worth more than the word of a non-law
enforcement witness(Deadly). Eyewitness testimonies are notorious for their unreliability, six
different people will give six different accounts of something as simple as a fender bender, never
mind a violent confrontation with police (Blink 43). Still, in courts the oaths sworn by police
officers seem to hold more value than the evidence of faulty human memory from the way
officers testimonies are treated (Deadly). The collected information is given the District
Attorney, who decides whether to bring the case before a Grand Jury. It should be noted,

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however, that the District Attorney is a person who is deeply involved in police business;
anything that reflects poorly on police officers reflects poorly on the district attorney. If the
Grand Jury indicts then a trial begins (NC Law). This is undoubtedly a flawed procedure; at
no point does the investigation involve any organization outside the police, at no point do higher
authorities take over the investigation from the police, at no point is the department held
accountable to anyone other than the DA, who frequently has a long and cordial history with the
local police department. An officer of the law killing a person, innocent or guilty, without trial is
a major event and should be treated as such, but the Department of Justices does not even collect
information on when officer involved shootings occur. In fact, the lackadaisical approach to law
enforcement accountability in the United States fails to comply with international standards set
by the United Nations (Deadly). The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force
and Firearms restricts the use of lethal force to the defense of self or others against immediate
threats of serious injury or death. To quote the document intentional lethal use of firearms may
only be made when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life (qtd. In Deadly). In all US
states, lethal force can be used against escaping prisoners, even nonviolent ones. Police officers
are trained, when using lethal force, to empty their firearms magazine before they stop firing
(NC Law). Most police forces in the US use firearms with 12-13 bullet magazines, so in any
confrontation 12-13 bullets will hit the suspect, the inanimate objects surrounding the suspect,
and innocent bystanders. In virtually every case where someone is shot by police less than
twelve times, the remaining bullets hit someone or something else. Not only is firing 12 bullets
into a suspect a far beyond what is strictly necessary and proportional in the eyes of the UN,
the potential for collateral damage and hurting innocents is well outside the UNs acceptable
standards from The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms

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(Deadly). Even supposedly nonlethal weapons used by police officers are deadly weapons
if something goes wrong. Between 2001 and 2012, over 540 people died after a police officer
used a Taser on them. Nightsticks and rubber bullets can kill if they hit the head or torso wrong
by causing brain damage, broken bones or ruptured internal organs. Tear gas and pepper spray
can cause scarring of the cornea of the eye, blinding a person permanently, they can cause
chemical burns on skin contact, they can cause a person with preexisting medical conditions to
go into respiratory arrest and die. Getting hit in the head with a tear gas canister will kill more
often than not. Under the Geneva Protocols, using tear gas against enemy soldiers would be a
war crime, yet police officers can use it of protesters dont have a license for their rally
(Deadly). Even fewer restrictions exist surrounding the use of nonlethal less-lethal weaponry
by police than exist for firearms, despite the way all less lethal weapons are still lethal and fall
under The United Nations Basic Principles on the Use of Force (Deadly, NC Law). Police
forces in the United States dont meet international standards; nine dont even meet
constitutional standard of No person shall be [] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of the law; since the law has no process for police use of lethal force (Deadly).
Some communities across the country have tried to provide some control with non-police related
accountability groups. Citizen review boards, civilian oversight committees, Offices of
community Complaints, and other similarly named groups attempt to provide accountability
lacking in the legislature. The idea first appeared inNYC in 1965 to stem complaints about
police misconduct to minority groups. It failed there, but the idea caught on across the country
(Kaste). The idea of policing the police through civilian groups seems great, but it has its own
problems. Who get to be on this bored? In the City of Charlotte, the 11 member Citizens
Review Board is made up of appointed members, 3 by the mayor, 5 by the City Counsel, and 3

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by the City Manager who all have up to two terms of 3 years to review appeals by citizens
against the police. In the 18 years the Citizens Review Board has existed, they ruled in favor of
the police every single time (Wright). Either the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police department has
never overused force, profiled a suspect, or otherwise been objectionable, or the Review Board
has failed to do its job. This is not unusual. There are less than 300 active citizen review boards
across the US, which according to Mark Silverstein of the ACLU, range from very weak to
somewhat effective (qtd. In Wright, Kaste). When a board is run by the same groups that run
the police, has no power to investigate complaints directly, has closed door meetings, and has a
higher standard of evidence than the police change is hard to create (Kaste, Wright). So, what
happens when a police officer kills someone while on the job? All too frequently a great sound
and fury, signifying nothing. How many people always do the right thing when no one is
watching? How many would hit another in anger, if they were sure their justified version of
events would be believed? What makes a police officer different than anyone else? Without
oversight and supervision people make mistakes or take advantage of the system. From
something as harmless as looting an entire candy bowl on Halloween instead of taking two
pieces to escalating an attempted arrest to a violent altercation, people will do what they want
when there are no consequences. If the legislative bodies of the United States and its component
states will not strengthen the laws regulating police, then cities should strengthen citizen
oversight from a token gesture to an actual force. A review board with the power and funding to
investigate the police, made up of elected members not appointed by city governments, would
have the power to force police accountability to the citizens they are meant to protect. Instead of
buying a military surplus armored transport for the riot squad, why not fund a citizen review
board to prevent the riot in the first place?

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"They shot my daddy 'cause he's black[]." These words were spoken by Lyric Scott,
daughter of Keith Lamont Scott, seconds after hearing of her fathers death. It isnt an
uncommon sentiment, its a part of the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Enough
people believed that statement to be true to participate in protests that became riots in the
Charlotte area following Lamonts death (Shoichet). How much truth is there in this sentiment?
Quite a lot, argues Kimberly Kahn in her paper How Suspect Race Affects Police Use Of Force
In An Interaction Over Time for the journal Law and Human Behavior. Kahn examined police
reports on use of force, and found that when officers knew nothing about a suspect other than
their race, they were more likely to escalate into use of force for minorities especially African
Americas and Latinos than if the suspect was white. At the same time, Kahn found that white
suspects are more likely to escalate a situation to require force without an officer using force first
(Kahn). This is a clear indication of racial bias in police officers. Not all officers, and not
everywhere, but enough to make a statistical difference. If officers had not attempted to smash
the passenger window of Scotts car with a baton during the arrest, he might have reacted
differently. Would officers have done the same thing for a white man smoking a joint of
marijuana and who may have had a gun (Shoichet)? Whether the racial bias of police forces is
conscious or not, approved or not, and institutional or not, it is statistically present. If police are
more likely to jump to force sooner, then more people are going to resist violently. If more
people resist police violently, then more people are going to be hurt or killed in their attempt.
Did Officer Brentley Vinson of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police kill Keith Lamont Scott
because he was black? Probably not. Vinson is African American as well. Did Vinson and his
fellow officers treat Scotts attempted arrest differently because he was black? Likely they did,
and that probably caused Scott to act in the way that the officers felt they needed to use lethal

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force for the safety of themselves and others. Racism is one of the most enduring problems in
the US, and there is no simple solution. Yes, police are less institutionally racist today than they
were in the 1960s, but that is the result cultural change in the nation as a whole and the civil
rights movement, not by a policy change by police (Deadly, Shoichet). One action that may
help alleviate the symptoms of institutional racism, if not the cause , is the passage of the End
Racial Profiling Act. The act seeks to bring US standards for defining institutional racism with
the United Nations definition. According to the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial
Discrimination (ICERD), policies that are discriminatory in act, no matter the intention, are
prohibited. As the law stands now, the US Court system can only end an institutionally racist
policy if the intent can be proven racist, no matter the end result by officers. The End Racial
Profiling Act would bridge the gap between these two definitions, giving federal courts the
ability to strike down even unintentionally institutionally racist policies.
Any situation where one person kills or may kill another reaches any definition of high
stress situation. What happens when a person is in a high stress situation and must make a life
and death decision? Adrenaline floods the brain, suppressing more complex thought in favor of
shorter reaction times, pattern recognition, and the flight or fight response (Gladwell 5). That is
all well and good for an animal fighting for survival in the forest, but for a civilized human being
charged with upholding the foundation of civilization that response causes nothing but
trouble. In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell argues that a sufficiently trained expert can make
decisions in an instant that are as good or better than carefully thought out ones (Gladwell
2). What that level of training for an expert is, Gladwell does not make clear, but police do not
have it. Its not all that surprising really, given that in the state of North Carolina a person

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spends more time training to be a licensed barber than a law enforcement officer (Deadly,
Yan). In the State of Massachusetts a refrigerator technician must undergo 1,000 hours of
training to be trusted to fix an appliance, but police officers are given a gun and badge after 900
hours of training. In Louisiana, a police officer must undergo only 360 hours of training before
hitting the streets; in the same place a manicurist must be trained for at least 500 hours before
getting a license to work (Yan). Clearly there is a problem with the system when a person is
trusted with a gun and the right to use it before they are trusted to work on the public with nail
files and polish. Gladwell agrees in Blink, where one of the few examples of snap judgements
gone wrong is the 1999 killing of Amadou Diallo. Four NYC Police officers demanded Diallo
stop and put his hands in the air, believing him to be a serial rapist or the rapists lookout. Diallo
did not stop or show his hands, instead pulling out his wallet. One officer, Sean Carroll, saw
Diallo reach for something small and square, shouted GUN and began shooting at Diallo. The
four officers fired 42 shots, 19 of which hit Diallo. Diallo was innocent of any crime (Gladwell
105). Perhaps if the officers in question had been better trained, then the shooting would not
have happened. Perhaps if Diallo had complied instantly, the officers in question would not have
felt the need to fire on him. Either way, this situation only highlights the way people behave
irrationally on both sides of a high stress situation.
Police officers work long hours for long work weeks. They are public servants, meant to
enforce the laws and serve the greater good. They are also people, just like anyone else. They
are fallible. When they make a mistake, people can die. Sometimes they do everything correctly
and people die anyway. Sometimes, they must kill someone in the line of duty. Sometimes they
dont or shouldnt, but they still kill someone. Poor accountability and poorly defined
regulations make justified use of lethal force a hazy idea in the best of times. High stress

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decision making and insufficient training can lead to police officers making the wrong call in the
heat of the moment, and using lethal force without proper justification. Racial bias in police
forces make people wary of police, seeing that police are more likely to use nonlethal forcebut
force nonethelessagainst minorities. Some of these people are going to use force right back at
the police, which can quickly escalate to police using lethal force against a dangerous suspect.

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Works Cited
Deadly Force: Police use of Lethal Force in the United States. Lethal Force: Amnesty
International USA. New York: Amnesty International Publications, 2015. Web. 4
November 2016
Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown,
2005. Print.
Kahn, Kimberly Barsamian, et al. "How Suspect Race Affects Police Use Of Force In An
Interaction Over Time." Law And Human Behavior (2016): PsycARTICLES. Web. 22
Oct. 2016.
Kaste, Martin. "Police Are Learning To Accept Civilian Oversight, But Distrust Lingers."
Weekend Edition Saturday: Law. NPR, 21 Feb. 2015. Web. 03 Dec. 2016.
"NC Law Details When Law Enforcement Can Use Deadly Force ..."CBS North Carolina. CBS,
1 Mar. 2016. Web. 14 Oct. 2016.
Shoichet, Catherine. "Keith Lamont Scott: What We Know about Man Shot by Charlotte Police."
Keith Lamont Scott: What We Know. CNN, 23 Sept. 2016. Web. 07 Nov. 2016.
Wright, Gary, and Fred Clasen-Kelly. "CMPD Review Panel Rules against Citizens - Every
Time." Charlotte Observer -- Crime. The Charlotte Oberver, 16 Feb. 2013. Web. 03 Dec.
2016.
Yan, Holly. "States Require More Training Time to Become a Barber than a Police
Officer." CNN. Cable News Network, 28 Sept. 2016. Web. 04 Nov. 2016.