Facilitated By: Everett Mitchell

Audience: Open to Everyone

When a police officer takes a life, the question of accountability is often settled long before anyone enters a courtroom. It is settled by legal standards the United States Supreme Court has built over decades, most notably in Tennessee v. Garner and Graham v. Connor, which judge an officer's conduct through the eyes of a "reasonable officer on the scene." This presentation traces how that standard came to be, whose perspective it centers, and whose it leaves out. Participants will examine how these decision are centered within the expansion of police powers within the late 90's and those powers still remain. In keeping with this year's theme, Casting Bold Visions: Healing & Activating from the Roots, we will dig down to the legal roots of state violence and identify the pressure points where communities, advocates, and policymakers have pushed to expand the possibilities for real accountability.