An international civil rights organization is arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that police officers can’t let a suspect whom they’ve shot multiple times die without trying to render aid.
The Rutherford Institute filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Patti Stevens-Rucker’s complaint on behalf of the estate of Jason White against the city of Columbus, Ohio.
Police shot White, a military veteran, multiple times, then “let him bleed to death rather than rendering emergency aid,” Rutherford said.
“The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that police satisfy their constitutional obligations to assist a person they injure in the course of an arrest simply by calling for an ambulance to transport the arrestee to a hospital. In asking the court to hear the case, Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that if prisoners have a constitutional right to medical care under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments, then police should be held to a comparable standard in their treatment of arrestees who require urgent medical attention.”
Rutherford President John W. Whitehead, a constitutional attorney, said: “While this case demands that police officers be made to abide by the Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments, it also demands that they be held to a higher moral law – that of basic decency, humanity and a truer understanding of what it means to be a public servant.”