violent acts from occurring, or protect the innocent is an integral part of the police role (Klinger, 2004). Most police officers believe that, according to Klinger (2004), that the vast majority of cases in which force is employed represent legitimate actions on the part of officers who are responding to a threat posed to their well-being or that of others. Indeed, Klinger (2004) believes that this is especially true when deadly or lethal force is used, stating that in his analysis of police department reviews of literally thousands of cases in which lethal force was used, fewer than five percent were found to have been inappropriate.
To understand the use of force by police, Rahtz (2003) said that it is becoming necessary to obtain clear agreement on what constitutes the legitimate use of force. A definition or a policy is only a starting point in evaluating a specific use of force incident. Rahtz (2003, p. 65) said that "unreasonable or excessive force is something like pornography. We usually know it when we see it." Rahtz (2003) contends that the US Supreme Court created a legal framework for evaluating the police use of force in two primary decisions in the cases of Tennessee v. Garner (1985) and Graham v. Connor (1989). Together, these cases identify the standard of reasonableness in use of force cases. The reasonableness of a use of force case must be judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene. The problem is that applying the principle of reasonableness to the complex situations faced by police is difficult
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