“Wrongful death refers to the death of an individual which due to someone else negligence or fault. Drinking while driving and factory defective products which leads to death are just some of the examples of improper conduct. Wrongful deaths may be happen in different situations such as medical malpractice and violation of certain safety measures and policies by individuals” (Onlinelawyersource, 2007). These deaths may be caused completely or partly by a person though the liable individual did not have any intent to take the casualty’s life.
Wrongful deaths, no matter what the cause is, cause emotional turmoil to the family of the victim. Since these death cases are unexpected, the bereavement is difficult especially that the life was taken away just by carelessness or negligence which could have easily been avoided if the individual or establishment liable had been more responsible. Wrongful death claims are often filed by family members of the victim not only to bring justice to the situation, but also to avail of the compensations for the losses. Likewise, complaints are filed to avoid future incidents of the unlawful death (Onlinelawyersource, 2007).
Given that wrongful death may be caused by the negligence of a professional in performing his or her duties, police officers are not spared in the occurrence of these fatalities. Wrongful death could happen with the involvement of a police officer, due either to the inappropriate action or passiveness in carrying out his or her duty. The death may be accounted for be a police officer’s failure to properly use his weapon, noncompliance to law enforcement policies, failure to employ reliable strategies in encounters, and failure to predict outcomes of his actions.
In such cases, however, majority of the circumstances are due to the improper use of force by the officers. This had always caught public attention, and citizens look forward to law enforcer’s employment of alternative procedures in their operations (Stearns, 2004). The police officers need to exercise accurate control over their assignments with dependable protection on their part as well as their target’s part. The success of each of their tasks is dependent on the safety measures and procedures that they apply.
Since encounters between a subject and the police may be as simple as possible or may come to a point of critical dealings, the circumstances always have the possibility to intensify into a lethal state (Wahl, 2005). The nature of any encounter between the police and the subject is reliant on the reaction of the target during the encounter, and the police officer’s understanding, analysis, and interpretation of the reaction exhibited. The police would act depending on his version of the subject’s response during for example, the arrest. This exchange of responses would decide the type of force to be used by the officers.
The higher the intensity of the situation, the higher force is to be used by the police in order to gain control over the encounter. The elevated dynamics of the attack might compel the police to stop the target using lethal force if the situation called for it; though the goal of each operation is to employ the least force possible to avoid injuries and wrongful deaths (Driscoll, 2003). There are factors that are known to influence the targets during an encounter, which might lead them to being victims of wrongful death if the conditions were not properly controlled.
Some of these influencing factors are illegal drug and alcohol use, abnormal reaction to therapeutic drugs; mental, emotional, and physical mutilation; awareness of the situation and what might happen; fear; possession of firearm or weapon; and the target’s instinct to save his life. On the other hand, there are also factors which influence the police officer and the way he deals with the encounter. These are awareness of the possible outcomes of the situation; the environment and safety of observers; the number of involved individuals; the police’s conditions; training; and planned strategies.
The escalation of an encounter between a person and the police, however, does not readily cause harm or wrongful death. The magnification of the situation occurs on a step by step basis. A noncompliant target is usually tamed by the mere presence of the officer and by verbal communication. If the target remained uncooperative after the verbal directions, the strategy was added with contact control. If the target remained resistant, the officer uses minimal pain compliance tactics. When instead of being submissive, the target becomes aggressive and assaultive; the officer then uses pain control with defensive strategies.
If the situation became more elevated such that the target or the subject imposes lethal threats to the officer or to the observers around them; then it is the time when the police officer would use deadly force or any method necessary to stop the threat. Although there really is no intention to kill the subject, the use of force by the officers might bring about unwanted outcomes when they were left with no choice but to employ a harsher force. Even during the early period of the escalation of an encounter, wrongful death may occur based on the tactics applied by the officer and how the target reacts to them (Pittinger, 2004).