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Mike Callahan

The Objectively Reasonable Officer

John Michael Callahan served in law enforcement for 44 years. His career began as a special agent with NCIS. He became an FBI agent and served in the FBI for 30 years, retiring in the position of supervisory special agent/chief division counsel. He taught criminal law/procedure at the FBI Academy. After the FBI, he served as a Massachusetts Deputy Inspector General and is currently a deputy sheriff for Plymouth County, Massachusetts. He is the author of two published books on deadly force and an upcoming book on supervisory and municipal liability in law enforcement.

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LATEST ARTICLES
Eighth Circuit rejects officer’s qualified immunity defense and finds continuous TASER deployment unnecessary, excessive and a violation of clearly established law
Seventh Circuit reverses lower court dismissal of civil rights lawsuit and reinstates officer and city as proper defendants
Court also rejects lower court use of freeze-frame “screen shots,” ruling that it amounts to “20/20 hindsight and second-guessing” of officer split-second decision to shoot
Did incident circumstances, including the concept of inattentional blindness, result in an officer’s inability to see the suspect drop his gun?
If H.R. 1280 becomes law, the defense of qualified immunity for law enforcement officers will be abolished
Court rules that Chicago police officer acted as private citizen when shooting and seriously wounding a friend
Compelled identify statutes valid only when officers detain a suspect based upon reasonable suspicion
Case reviews nonconsensual police entry into a private residence to arrest an occupant
The Rollice case is the latest in a series of questionable decisions involving police shootings where lower courts examine officer pre-shooting conduct
Court ruled the officers had probable cause to detain the subject for his own safety and the legal power to use reasonable force to accomplish that detention