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8 Colum. J. Race & L. 1 (2017-2018)

handle is hein.journals/cjoral8 and id is 1 raw text is: DISMANTLING THE TRAP: UNTANGLING THE CHAIN OF EVENTS IN EXCESSIVE FORCE CLAIMS By Cara McClellan' In the wake of repeated police shootings of unarmed Black men and women, police departments across the country are focusing on de-escalation. Yet federal courts reviewing Fourth Amendment excessive force violations are often unwilling to take into account how an officer's pre-seizure conduct may have affected the need to use force during a civilian encounter. I argue that as part of the Graham v. Connor reasonableness analysis, courts revtewing excessive force claims should consider prior police conduct that impacted the need for force when the officer predictably causes the civilian to respond by employing an overly aggressive tactic. I provide examples of how traditional principles of causation in tort law could apply and provide a workable approach. Moreover, I argue that the severity of the crime provides context that is essential to interpreting causation in the entire chain of events that occurs during the police-civilian interaction. We were coming from playing basketball and some of us weren't even wearing our t-shirts. [The police] started patting us down like we're gonna have a gun in our shorts. One of the police officers actually took the food I just bought and threw it down and was like 'You got an issue with what I just did?' I guess they were trying to start an issue where they could arrest me. I wanted to talk back. I actually started talking back, but then I just got quiet. 'Cause I'm basically falling for their trap. If they want me to be locked up 1 Cara McClellan is a Skadden Fellow at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. B.A. 2010, Yale College; M.S.Ed 2012, University of Pennsylvania; J.D. 2015, Yale Law School.