Were Nevada’s fleeing-felon law adjusted to comply with federal regulations, says Dean Ishman, we might see fewer officer-involved fatalities and more guilty verdicts in the coroner’s inquest, a process in which only one officer has ever been held criminally liable—and he was eventually absolved by a jury.
So says Ishman, a former New York City transit cop and, until recently, head of the Las Vegas chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Backed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada, the NAACP offered a bill during last year’s legislative session to bring state law up to federal snuff. “Cops shooting a fleeing suspect who poses no imminent danger should be against the law,” says Ishman. “If it was outlawed, as it is in federal law by Tennessee v. Garner, it would never have to be an issue for a coroner’s inquest.”
As written, AB436 would have limited lethal force on fleeing suspects to the most extreme cases where there is an “immediate threat of danger.” As enacted, the bill focused more on the coroner’s inquest, allowing families of those killed by officers to testify. Ishman says the bill’s original intent got lost in the vortex of politics. An opportunity lost, he says. Ishman’s ready to pick up the fight again in the 2009 session, but the tone in his voice reflects the frustration he’s beginning to feel about the whole process.
Inspiration for the law came from the case of 17-year-old murder suspect Swuave Lopez, who was fatally shot by police after he escaped from a police car. An inquest jury absolved the officers. “He [Lopez] was handcuffed and presumably disarmed, because you check for weapons when you detain somebody, so there is no immediate threat,” Ishman says. “What do you need an inquest for when state law says the procedure is wrong?”
Rob Correales, an assistant professor of law at UNLV who helped craft the initial bill, says statutory changes in other states have deterred police misconduct. He will be helping Ishman when he resumes the fight to change the law. “This is a multiple-step process: We’ve got to change state law to establish a standard by which the coroner’s inquest can function. Look back at inquests: Some jurors have expressed concern over exonerating police even though some things happened that maybe shouldn’t have happened.”