HOUSTON Ashtian Barnes, 24, was shot and killed in the driver’s seat after a routine traffic stop on a Texas highway turned deadly in a matter of seconds.
A Supreme Court lawsuit that might make it easier or harder to hold police officers accountable for using excessive force is now centered on what transpired during those seconds and the minutes before the April 2016 incident. The case is being heard on Wednesday.
The oral argument at the high court is the most recent stop in a more than eight-year journey for justice for Barnes’ sole son, a Black man, according to Janice Hughes, 55, the mother of Barnes who brought the civil rights petition at the heart of the case.
I don’t want my son to be a victim of this. I must make it obvious that he was never a suspect. With her two daughters and granddaughter by her side, she said in an emotional interview at her lawyer’s Houston home that he was a victim from the start.
Despite the widespread demonstrations and calls for social justice that followed the death of George Floyd, another Black man murdered by a police officer, over five years ago, Hughes feels that nothing has changed.
Hughes stated, “I think someone has to take this seriously at some point because it keeps happening and all we can do is rally and Black Lives Matter, and nothing changes.” The police are not being policed.
Lower courts rejected Hughes’ civil rights complaint, citing the lack of excessive force.
However, based on a precedent that has been followed in some regions of the nation but has not yet been endorsed by the Supreme Court, the courts made that determination based only on the exact instant that force was employed.
Hughes’ attorneys are now requesting that the Supreme Court reject what has been named the moment of the threat theory. This might result in a countrywide decision that makes it clear that judges should take into account the circumstances surrounding an officer’s use of force when evaluating their behavior.