Excessive force by police is physical force that goes beyond what a reasonable officer would have used in the same situation. The Supreme Court set that test in 1989, and it still governs every excessive force case in federal court. The question is not whether the officer could have chosen a gentler option, or whether the force looks ugly on video. It is whether a reasonable officer facing the same facts, in the same seconds, would have believed that level of force was necessary.
The Legal Standard
The controlling case is Graham v. Connor, decided by the Supreme Court in 1989. The Court held that any claim of excessive force during an arrest, investigatory stop, or other seizure is analyzed under the Fourth Amendment’s “objective reasonableness” standard.1Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989) The officer’s subjective motives, good or bad, do not control. What controls is the conduct, judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer at the scene.
Hindsight is explicitly off the table. The Court recognized that officers make split-second judgments in tense, uncertain, and rapidly evolving encounters, and the standard accounts for that pressure.2Library of Congress. U.S. Reports: Graham v. Connor et al., 490 U.S. 386 (1989) A choice that looks wrong once the dust settles is not automatically unreasonable; the test asks what a reasonable officer would have believed in that moment.
Two boundaries are worth knowing. For pretrial detainees already in custody, excessive force claims run under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, but the Supreme Court held in Kingsley v. Hendrickson (2015) that the test is still objective reasonableness. The detainee does not have to prove the officers meant harm, only that the force was objectively unreasonable.3Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015) For convicted prisoners, claims arise under the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment clause, which demands a showing that the officer acted maliciously and sadistically. That is a markedly higher bar, and prison excessive force cases are harder to win because of it.
How Courts Decide Whether Force Was Excessive
Graham itself identified three factors that drive the analysis:1Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989)
- The severity of the crime at issue. An armed robbery call justifies a different level of force than a minor traffic infraction. The more serious the suspected offense, the more force a court will tolerate.
- Whether the person poses an immediate threat to the officers or to others. Courts treat this as the single most important factor. Someone reaching toward a waistband during a confrontation and someone standing still with hands visible are not the same case.
- Whether the person is actively resisting or trying to flee. An officer may need to physically restrain someone who is fighting or pulling away. Striking a person who has stopped resisting and is already on the ground is almost impossible to defend.
Those three factors are not a checklist. Courts weigh them together, and other circumstances feed into the analysis: how many officers were present, whether the person appeared to be in a mental health crisis, how fast the encounter escalated, whether weapons were visible. But the Graham factors are the backbone, and almost every court opinion in this area walks through them.
The Force Continuum
Most law enforcement agencies train officers on some version of a force continuum. The National Institute of Justice describes a typical model that begins with officer presence and verbal commands, moves through empty-hand control, then to less-lethal tools such as pepper spray, batons, and conducted energy devices, and ends with deadly force as a last resort.4National Institute of Justice. The Use-of-Force Continuum
The continuum is a training framework, not a constitutional requirement. Officers do not have to climb through every rung before using a higher level of force; a person who suddenly produces a knife will not be met with a warning speech. But the continuum sets expectations. When an officer skips several levels past what the person’s behavior called for, that gap becomes strong evidence of unreasonable force.
De-Escalation
Many departments now require officers to attempt de-escalation before resorting to physical force. Research from 2023 found that 79% of departments in the 100 largest U.S. cities impose that requirement. Major policing organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Police Executive Research Forum, have endorsed de-escalation as standard practice. The idea is practical: slow the encounter, create distance, communicate, and give the person a chance to comply before anyone goes hands-on.
No policy requires an officer to try talking down someone who is actively attacking. But in the many encounters that start tense and could go either way, whether an officer attempted de-escalation before escalating increasingly shapes how courts and review boards evaluate what followed.
Techniques That Cross the Line
Some specific techniques are treated as inherently dangerous. In September 2021, the Department of Justice directed its federal law enforcement components, including the FBI, DEA, ATF, and U.S. Marshals, to ban chokeholds and carotid restraints unless the officer faces an immediate threat of death or serious physical injury sufficient to justify deadly force in the first place.5U.S. Department of Justice. Chokeholds and Carotid Restraints; Knock and Announce Requirement Under the DOJ’s definitions, a chokehold applies pressure to the throat or windpipe and restricts breathing, while a carotid restraint cuts off blood flow to the brain to cause unconsciousness.
Many state and local departments have adopted similar bans. Other techniques that draw heavy scrutiny include hogtying, prolonged prone restraint with pressure on the back, and repeated use of conducted energy devices on someone who is already restrained. There is no universal federal statute banning these methods for state and local officers, but using any of them on a compliant or restrained person almost always fails the objective reasonableness test.
When Deadly Force Is Allowed
Deadly force has its own constitutional rule, set by the Supreme Court in Tennessee v. Garner (1985). An officer may use deadly force to stop a fleeing suspect only when the officer has probable cause to believe the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.6Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985) The case itself involved a Memphis officer who fatally shot an unarmed teenager climbing a fence after a home burglary. The Court held that shooting was unconstitutional.
The practical result: running away, by itself, is not a basis for deadly force. The officer needs a reasonable belief that letting the person escape would put someone in serious danger. An armed suspect, or one who has just committed a violent crime, shifts the calculus. A nonviolent offense combined with no sign of dangerousness almost never supports deadly force. The Court also noted that officers should give a warning before firing, where feasible.
Officers Who Watch Can Be Liable Too
Excessive force is not only the responsibility of the officer who throws the punch or fires the shot. Federal courts have long held that an officer who stands by while a colleague uses excessive force can be personally liable if that officer knew what was happening and had a realistic chance to stop it. The theory applies in civil rights lawsuits under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and a growing number of states have written a statutory duty to intervene into their own law. For the person on the receiving end, this means every officer at the scene is potentially accountable, not just the one making contact.
What You Can Do If It Happens to You
The main legal tool is a federal civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which allows anyone to sue a government official who violated their constitutional rights while acting in an official capacity. A successful plaintiff can recover compensatory damages for medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering, and emotional distress, and punitive damages when the conduct was especially egregious.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 1983 – Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights A companion statute, 42 U.S.C. § 1988, lets the court order the losing side to pay the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees, which is why many civil rights lawyers take these cases on contingency.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 1988 – Proceedings in Vindication of Civil Rights
Separately, officers can face federal criminal charges under 18 U.S.C. § 242, which makes it a crime for anyone acting under color of law to willfully deprive someone of a constitutional right. Penalties scale with the harm, up to life in prison when a death results.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 242 – Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law The “willfully” requirement is a much higher bar than the civil standard, which is why federal criminal prosecutions of officers are rare compared to civil suits.
One major hurdle on the civil side is qualified immunity. The doctrine shields officers from personal liability unless they violated a right that was “clearly established” at the time, meaning a prior court decision had addressed sufficiently similar facts to put any reasonable officer on notice that the conduct was unconstitutional. Many cases die on that second prong even when the force itself looks unreasonable. A handful of states, including Colorado, New Mexico, and Connecticut, have passed laws creating state-level civil rights claims that limit or eliminate qualified immunity, and New York City has done the same by local ordinance. Those state claims can give plaintiffs a path when the federal case is blocked.
If you believe you have experienced excessive force, a few practical steps make a real difference:
- Get medical attention right away. A contemporaneous medical record is powerful evidence, and if you are in custody, note the time and the name of every officer you ask for treatment.
- Document everything while it is fresh. Date, time, location, officer names and badge numbers, witness names and contact information, and a detailed account of what happened and what injuries resulted. Memory fades within hours.
- Photograph your injuries from multiple angles, and photograph them again over the following days as bruising develops.
- File a complaint. Most agencies have an internal affairs division; some jurisdictions have civilian oversight boards; and civil rights violations can be reported to the Department of Justice at civilrights.justice.gov. Even if an internal investigation goes nowhere, it creates an official record.10U.S. Department of Justice. Report a Crime or Submit a Complaint
- Talk to a civil rights attorney quickly. There is no uniform federal deadline for Section 1983 claims; courts borrow the state’s personal injury statute of limitations, which can be as short as one year. Many attorneys offer free consultations and work on contingency.
One thing not to do: do not resist during the encounter itself, even if the force feels unjustified. Resistance can escalate the danger and can later be used to justify the officer’s actions in court. The courtroom is where excessive force claims are won.