week 4 8400
© 2016 Laureate Education, Inc. Page 1 of 2
Week 4 Case Studies
Case 1 At approximately 1:00 a.m., a homeless, middle-aged, white male stumbled into the path of a vehicle driven by a young Hispanic woman on her way home from her work as a nurse. The man was impaled on the windshield of the vehicle, nearly severing one leg. The driver decided not to stop and drove three miles to her home with the victim halfway through her windshield. She parked the car in her garage and called her boyfriend to come over. Meanwhile the victim was pleading for his life, begging the nurse to call for help. She explained to him that she could not because her driver’s license had expired. For several hours, she and her boyfriend checked on the man until he had bled out from his wounds. After he died, the boyfriend dumped the body in a local park. Eventually, police were given information that led to the nurse’s arrest. She was charged with felony hit and run and vehicular manslaughter.
Case 2 Police receive a 911 call that a fight has started between two men at a party. When police arrive they see a vehicle accelerating away from the area at a high speed. Police pursue the vehicle with lights flashing and siren blaring. The vehicle does not stop and continues at a high speed for three miles until, finally, the driver pulls over. Because he refused to pull over when commanded, the police consider this to be a felony pursuit. Police, guns drawn, order him to place his hands where they can be seen. The driver fails to do so. After several commands to show his hands the driver starts to exit the vehicle. Police tell him to remain where he is. The driver ignores the commands and exits the vehicle, keeping one hand in his coat pocket. He is ordered to show his hands and get on the ground. He ignores the commands and keeps walking toward police and reaching into his pocket. Police order him several times to obey or they will shoot him. The driver ignores the police and starts to pull something out of his pocket. Police fire two shots and the driver falls to the ground but continues to reach for something in his pocket. He is ordered to stop reaching into his pocket. The driver continues to ignore the commands, at which point police shoot him again while he is on the ground, killing him. Later it was discovered that the driver was not the person fighting at the party but was under the influence of alcohol and decided to leave. When he saw police arrive he accelerated because he already had one DUI and wanted to avoid the police. He was too intoxicated to follow police commands. He was not armed but did have a plastic object in his coat pocket that he had been reaching for when he was shot. The driver was a 19- year-old white male and the police were also white. The police are being sued by the family of the deceased for using unnecessary, excessive force.
© 2016 Laureate Education, Inc. Page 2 of 2
Case 3 A series of armed robberies of stores occurred in a city known for gang violence. Witnesses in the stores at the time of the robberies noted that the two robbers appeared to be Hispanic. Neither of the robbers wore masks but told those who were in the stores not to look at them. The witnesses were all white and were shown a series of photos of Hispanic men. They were also shown video footage of men who had entered one of the stores earlier in the day. Witnesses were fairly sure they identified one of the robbers. He was a college student, Hispanic, with no criminal record. He was placed in a police lineup for witnesses to identify him and was, after considerable deliberation by the witnesses, determined to be one of the two robbers. Not all the witnesses were 100% sure he was the robber, but were sure enough for police to charge him with armed robbery.