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Supreme Court Seems Ready to Reject Limit on Excessive-Force Suits Against Police Officers
The Supreme Court seemed poised on Wednesday to reject a legal theory that puts tight limits on lawsuits seeking to hold police officers accountable for using deadly force.
The case arose, an appeals court judge wrote, from a commonplace occurrence. “A routine traffic stop,” the judge wrote, “has again ended in the death of an unarmed Black man.”
The question for the justices was how closely courts should confine their consideration to “the moment of threat” rather than the larger context of the encounter.
There was something like consensus that the theory was focused too narrowly on the seconds preceding a shooting.
“Everybody agrees it’s wrong,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said. “What’s the harm of saying that?”
The case started on an April afternoon in 2016, when Ashtian Barnes, 24, was driving on a highway outside Houston in a car his girlfriend had rented. He was on his way to pick up her daughter from day care.
Though Mr. Barnes did not know it, the car’s license plate was linked to unpaid tolls that had been incurred by another driver. Office Roberto Felix Jr. of the Harris County Constable’s Office pulled the car over based on those unpaid tolls.
When Mr. Barnes could not immediately locate his license and the car’s registration, the officer asked him to step out of the car. Instead, Mr. Barnes began to pull away, with the car door still open. Officer Felix drew his gun, jumped onto the moving car’s door sill and twice shot Mr. Barnes, as recorded on dash cam footage.
Mr. Barnes’s mother, Janice Hughes Barnes, sued, saying the officer’s use of force was unreasonable, violating the Fourth Amendment.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled last year in favor of the officer on what it said was a narrow question. “We may only ask whether Officer Felix was in danger ‘at the moment of the threat’ that caused him to use deadly force against Barnes,” Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham wrote.
Judge Higginbotham added a concurring opinion, writing only for himself. Had he been allowed to consider all of the circumstances surrounding the stop, he wrote, he could have ruled the other way.
“Given the rapid sequence of events and Officer Felix’s role in drawing his weapon and jumping on the running board,” the judge wrote, “the totality of the circumstances merits finding that Officer Felix violated Barnes’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from excessive force.”
At Wednesday’s argument in the case, Barnes v. Felix, No. 23-1239, some justices expressed concerns about second-guessing police officers’ split-second judgments. “An officer does not get the time we’ve spent here today to make the decision,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said.
But most of the justices seemed inclined to allow the court to consider more than the seconds before the shooting.
“Would you be satisfied,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked a lawyer for Ms. Barnes, “with a narrow holding that it is wrong for a court to look just at the moment of the threat?”
The lawyer, Nathaniel A.G. Zelinsky, said he would, though he added that “it would be helpful if the court makes clear that that means that you can look at the jump in addition to the shoot.”
Charles L. McCloud, a lawyer for Officer Felix, said the court should narrow its focus to the moment he used force. “He was clinging to the side of a fleeing suspect’s car, and Felix reasonably believed that his life was in imminent danger,” Mr. McCloud said. “That conclusion should end this case.”
In rebuttal, Mr. Zelinsky disagreed. “You have to look at the whole picture,” he said, “and here that’s more than just two seconds.”
An explosion and fire drew a large emergency response on Friday to a lumber mill in the Midcoast region of Maine, officials said.
The State Police and fire marshal’s investigators responded to Robbins Lumber in Searsmont, about 72 miles northeast of Portland, said Shannon Moss, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.
Mike Larrivee, the director of the Waldo County Regional Communications Center, said the number of victims was unknown, cautioning that “the information we’re getting from the scene is very vague.”
“We’ve sent every resource in the county to that area, plus surrounding counties,” he said.
Footage from the scene shared by WABI-TV showed flames burning through the roof of a large structure as heavy, dark smoke billowed skyward.
The Associated Press reported that at least five people were injured, and that county officials were considering the incident a “mass casualty event.”
Catherine Robbins-Halsted, an owner and vice president at Robbins Lumber, told reporters at the scene that all of the company’s employees had been accounted for.
Gov. Janet T. Mills of Maine said on social media that she had been briefed on the situation and urged people to avoid the area.
“I ask Maine people to join me in keeping all those affected in their thoughts,” she said.
Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, said on social media that he was aware of the fire and explosion.
“As my team and I seek out more information, I am praying for the safety and well-being of first responders and everyone else on-site,” he said.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Crime scene tape surrounds a bicycle in front of St. Lukes Episcopal Church in Atlanta on May 14, 2026. (SKYFOX 5)
ATLANTA – The woman stabbed to death on the Beltline has been identified as 23-year-old Alyssa Paige, according to the Fulton County Medical Examiner.
The backstory:
Paige was killed by a 21-year-old man Thursday afternoon while she was on the Beltline. Officials confirmed to FOX 5 that the stabbing happened near the 1700 block of Flagler Avenue NE.
Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said the department was alerted around 12:10 p.m. that a woman had been stabbed just north of the Montgomery Ferry Drive overpass. She was rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital where she later died. Another person was also stabbed during the incident, but their condition remains unknown.
According to officers, the man responsible attacked a U.S. Postal worker prior to the stabbing before getting away on a bike. He then used that bike to flee the scene of the stabbing as well.
The suspect was arrested near St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Peachtree Street in Midtown around 5:25 p.m.
What we don’t know:
While officials haven’t released an official motive, they noted the man may have been suffering a mental health crisis.
The Source: Information in this article came from the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office and previous FOX 5 reporting.
Federal prosecutors have filed charges against a former Army serviceman they accused of distributing instructions on how to build explosives that were used by a man who conducted a deadly attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day last year.
The former serviceman, Jordan A. Derrick, a 40-year-old from Missouri, was charged with one count of engaging in the business of manufacturing explosive materials without a license; one count of unlawful possession of an unregistered destructive device; and one count of distributing information relating to manufacturing explosives, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday. The three charges together carry a maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison.
Starting in September 2023, the authorities said, Mr. Derrick was using various social media sites to share videos of himself making explosive materials, including detonators. His videos provided step-by-step instructions, and he often engaged with viewers in comments, sometimes answering their questions about the chemistry behind the explosives.
The authorities said that Mr. Derrick’s videos were downloaded by Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, 42, who was accused of ramming a pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Jan. 1, 2025, in a terrorist attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens. Mr. Jabbar was killed in a shootout with the police. Before the attack, Mr. Jabbar had placed two explosives on Bourbon Street, the authorities said, but they did not detonate.
The authorities later recovered two laptops and a USB drive in a house that Mr. Jabbar had rented. The USB drive contained several videos created by Mr. Derrick that provided instructions on making explosives. The authorities said the explosives they recovered were consistent with the ones Mr. Derrick had posted about.
Mr. Derrick’s lawyers did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr. Derrick was a combat engineer in the Army, where he provided personnel and vehicle support, the authorities said. He also helped supervise safety personnel during demolitions and various operations. He was honorably discharged in February 2013.
The authorities did not say whether Mr. Derrick had any communication with Mr. Jabbar, or whether the men had known each other. In some of Mr. Derrick’s videos and comments, he indicated that he was aware that his videos could be misused.
“There are a plethora of uh, moral, you know, entanglements with topics, any topic of teaching explosives, right?” he asked in one video, according to the affidavit. “Of course, the wrong people could get it.”
The authorities also said that an explosion occurred at a private residence in Odessa, Mo., on May 4, and the occupant of the residence told investigators that he had manufactured explosives after watching online tutorials from Mr. Derrick.
Mr. Derrick’s YouTube account had more than 15,000 subscribers and 20 published videos, the affidavit said. He had also posted content on other platforms, including Odysee and Patreon. Some videos were accessible to the public for free, while others required a paid subscription to view.
“My responsibility to my countrymen is to make sure that I serve the function of the Second Amendment to strengthen it,” Mr. Derrick said in one of his videos, according to the affidavit. “This is how I serve my country for real.”
Outside of the income he received through content creation, Mr. Derrick did not have any known employment. He did receive a monthly disability check from Veterans Affairs, the affidavit stated.
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