The Felony Stop With a Passenger Who Won't Comply
Sergeant Cole is running a high-risk stop on a vehicle matching a broadcast for an armed robbery suspect. The vehicle is stopped in a residential cul-de-sac at 0200. The driver exits and is taken into custody without incident. The front passenger, a woman, remains in the car with her hands visible on the dashboard but refuses repeated commands to exit. She is yelling that she has done nothing and that she is pregnant. Cole has six officers on scene, a felony takedown planned, and no information that the passenger was involved in the robbery. After 4 minutes of noncompliance, Cole orders an officer to break the passenger window and extract her. During the extraction she sustains a laceration to her forearm. A records check later shows she had no warrants and was not a suspect.
1. Evaluate the legality and reasonableness of the window-break and extraction under the Fourth Amendment.
Read the worked answer
The question is whether the force used was objectively reasonable under the totality of the circumstances, judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer on scene rather than with hindsight.
Factors favoring the action: a felony stop at 0200 in a residential area; a vehicle matching an armed robbery broadcast; a passenger who refused lawful commands for four minutes; a potentially armed suspect unaccounted for; and the risk that a noncompliant occupant could access a weapon or drive off. Officers may use reasonable force to effect a lawful detention, and noncompliance during a high-risk stop is a recognized risk factor.
Factors cutting against: the passenger was not identified as a suspect; her hands were visible; she was unarmed as far as officers knew; she stated she was pregnant; and there were six officers present, which reduces the urgency of a forcible extraction versus continued containment and negotiation.
Bottom line: the stop and detention were lawful if the vehicle match and broadcast were sufficient. The extraction is defensible but not automatically so-the stronger course is to articulate why waiting created a specific risk (e.g., she was reaching, the vehicle was running, a weapon was visible). The pregnancy statement alone does not bar force, but it is a factor officers must weigh. The laceration does not by itself make the force excessive; the question is whether the force was proportional to the threat.
2. What documentation and procedural steps would you require after the injury?
Read the worked answer
- Medical aid immediately-EMS evaluation of the laceration and any pregnancy-related concern; document refusal of care if she declines.
- Use-of-force report for each officer who applied force, with a separate supervisor review, including the specific commands given, the number of commands, the time elapsed, and the articulable risk that justified the window break.
- Photographs of the injury, the vehicle, and the scene; preserve any body-worn camera and in-car video before it overwrites.
- Witness statements from all six officers independently, not a group narrative.
- Notification per agency policy (supervisor, and typically a watch commander or internal affairs threshold review for an injury).
- Document the negative finding-that she had no warrants and was not a suspect-because that fact will be central to any later review and should be in the file, not discovered later.
- Review the felony-stop plan to determine whether containment and continued verbal control should have preceded extraction.