WHAT EXCESSIVE FORCE?

Is it “excessive force” if a sheriff’s deputy beats and pepper-sprays a motorist who had been stopped only because the deputy saw the motorist without a fastened seatbelt?

A district court judge had concluded that the force was justified, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said that excessive use of force was for a jury to
evaluate.

The deputy’s explanation: The motorist, while waiting for the deputy to finish writing his report, was sitting on a curb eating a bowl of broccoli, so the deputy had to beat him down, he said, out of fear that the motorist would throw the broccoli at him and then attack him.

Read the case at: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1578552.html

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