Use of force is the amount of force used in a given situation during police work. The police are supposed to follow the continuum when it come to using force. This continuum is known as the “Use of Force Continuum”. Despite this, use of force is still a constant problem in policing. There are many cases where a cop are sued for using more force than necessary, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident. It can be hard to prosecute a cop for these actions due to the constant state of threat a cop’s life is at while doing their job and the unpredictability of their job.
An example of an case where the police’s use of force were questioned was the Wardlaw v. Pickett case. In this case a man named, William C. Wardlaw decided to sue the United States Deputy Marshals, William Pickett and Albert Crew. Wardlaw claimed that the two violated his constitutional rights by using excessive force on him and falsing arresting and prosecuting him. Wardlaw and the two Marshals ended up giving different stories, but the story that was used under law was Wardlaw’s story. The court ended up taking the Marshals’ side in this case as they felt the use of force was not excessive (“William C. Wardlaw, Appellant, v. William R. Pickett, Deputy United States Marshal, Et Al., Appellees, 1 F.3d 1297 (D.C. Cir. 1993)”).
Wardlaw’s story stated that on June 7, 1988, Him and a man named John Heid was watching a court hearing. When the judge of the hearing announced a recess, a Marshal, named Donald