For Immediate Release: March 18, 2020
Rutherford Institute Challenges Court Ruling That Trouble Understanding Police Orders Constitutes Resistance, Justifies Use of Excessive Force
DENVER, Colo. — Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have appealed a federal court’s ruling that refused to hold police responsible for brutalizing an African-American man who, despite complying with police orders during an arrest, was subjected to excessive force and brutality, including being thrown to the ground, tasered, and placed in a chokehold that rendered him unconscious and required his hospitalization for three days.
In a brief filed in Edwards v. Harmon on behalf of Jeriel Edwards, Institute attorneys are asking the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the dismissal of Edwards’ Fourth Amendment lawsuit and allow a jury to determine whether police used excessive and unreasonable force upon Edwards. The brief argues that, as shown by dash cam video of the arrest, Edwards was not resisting and was subdued at the time he was tased and subjected to a chokehold, making the officers’ actions a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Affiliate attorney Wyatt Worden of The Worden Law Firm and David Lee of Riggs, Abney, Neal, Turpen, Orbison & Lewis are assisting in the defense of Edwards’ Fourth Amendment rights.
“If you ask police what Americans should do to stay alive during encounters with law enforcement, they will tell you to comply, cooperate, obey, not resist, not argue, not make threatening gestures or statements, avoid sudden movements, and submit to a search of their person and belongings,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “The problem is what to do when compliance is not enough. How can you maintain the illusion of freedom when daily, Americans are being shot, stripped, searched, choked, beaten and tasered by police for little more than daring to frown, smile, question, challenge an order or merely exist?”
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