Memphis Revisited: A Reexamination of Police Shootings After the "Garner" Decision

• NCJ Number: 140110
• Journal: Justice Quarterly Volume: 9 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1992) Pages: 211-226
• Author(s): J R Sparger; D J Giacopassi
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 16 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study determines whether the court decisions, particularly the U.S. Supreme Court' decision in Tennessee v. Garner (1985), and the resultant administrative changes in the Memphis Police Department's (Tennessee) deadly force policies have altered the apparently discriminatory pattern of shootings characteristic of the 1969-74 period.

Abstract

In 1974, a Memphis police officer shot and killed an unarmed 15-year-old black suspect who was attempting to flee from the scene of a nighttime residential burglary. In the resulting landmark case of Tennessee v. Garner, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Tennessee statute under which the Memphis shooting occurred was unconstitutional because the statute did not distinguish between dangerous and nondangerous fleeing felons. In 1979, the Memphis Police Department's (MPD's) shooting policy was revised to define more explicitly the conditions under which deadly force was justified. In August 1985, 5 months after the "Garner" decision, the MPD again revised its shooting policy to conform strictly with the Court's ruling. The new policy emphasized that before deadly force should be use, a determination must be made that the suspect committed a violent felony and that the suspect posed "a threat of serious physical harm to the officer or to others unless he is immediately apprehended." The study reported in this article analyzes the Memphis shooting data over three periods: 1969-74, prior to the Garner case; and 1979-84 and 1985-89, periods that correspond to the major revisions in MPD shooting policy. The results of this study support the conclusion of past research (Fyfe, 1979; Geller, 1982; Mays and Taggart, 1985; and Walker, 1990), which found "a pattern of compliance with the rules and fulfillment of their intended goals" (Walker, 1990). Frequently, however, the patterned response of police shootings is difficult to determine; it is clouded by the many variables that influence the rate of police shootings, by the difficulty in objectively quantifying elements of the shooting situation, and by the limitations of post-hoc analysis. 5 tables and 13 references