Orlando Excessive
Force Attorneys

Every arrest involves some degree of physical coercion, and the law accepts that. The constitutional question is never whether force was used, but whether the amount used was reasonable given what the officer confronted at that moment. That distinction is why two incidents that look similar on video can reach opposite legal results.

King Law represents people injured by law enforcement in Orlando and across Central Florida, including claims involving strikes and takedowns, conducted electrical weapons, police dogs, chemical agents, restraint asphyxia and deadly force. These claims are typically brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the Middle District of Florida, Orlando Division, and frequently alongside Florida battery and negligence claims arising from the same event.

The Governing Standard: Graham v. Connor

Claims that police used excessive force during an arrest, investigatory stop or other seizure are analysed under the Fourth Amendment’s objective reasonableness standard set out in Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989). The court asks whether the officer’s actions were objectively reasonable in light of the facts confronting them, without regard to their underlying intent or motivation. An officer with bad motives who used reasonable force is not liable; an officer with good intentions who used unreasonable force can be.

Graham identifies three factors that anchor the analysis: the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to the safety of officers or others, and whether the suspect was actively resisting arrest or attempting to flee. Courts weigh these from the perspective of a reasonable officer on the scene, allowing for the fact that officers often must make split-second judgements in tense and rapidly evolving circumstances.

That allowance is real, but it is not unlimited. The reasonableness inquiry is dynamic: force that was justified at the start of an encounter can become unconstitutional once the threat has ended. Continuing to strike, tase or restrain someone who has already been subdued, handcuffed or rendered compliant is one of the most frequently litigated fact patterns in this area.

Deadly Force

Deadly force is subject to a narrower rule. Under Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985), an officer may not use deadly force to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect unless the officer has probable cause to believe the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others. The fact that someone is running away does not, by itself, justify shooting them.

Cases in this category commonly turn on the precise sequence and timing of events: where the person’s hands were, whether they were moving toward or away from the officer, whether a weapon was actually visible, what warnings were given, and how many seconds elapsed between the officer’s arrival and the first shot. Reconstructing that sequence usually requires body camera footage, audio analysis, scene measurements, autopsy or medical findings, and sometimes accident-reconstruction or use-of-force expert testimony.

People Already in Custody Are Treated Differently

The Fourth Amendment governs force used during a seizure. Once a person has been convicted and is serving a sentence, excessive force claims arise instead under the Eighth Amendment, which asks whether force was applied maliciously and sadistically to cause harm rather than in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline. Pretrial detainees — people held in jail but not convicted — are protected under the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause.

This matters because the standards differ in how demanding they are, and because the same person may move between categories over the course of a single day. Someone injured during arrest, then injured again in a holding cell, may have two claims governed by two different constitutional tests. Identifying the correct framework at the outset is essential.

Qualified Immunity in Force Cases

Even where force appears excessive, an individual officer is protected by qualified immunity unless the right violated was clearly established at the time. In practice this means the court looks for prior precedent addressing sufficiently similar conduct. Because force cases are so fact-specific, the availability of closely analogous Eleventh Circuit and Supreme Court authority often determines whether a claim proceeds.

Officers who did not personally apply force are not automatically in the clear. An officer who was present, saw a constitutional violation occurring and had a realistic opportunity to intervene may be liable for failing to do so. And where the force resulted from a departmental policy, a widespread custom, or a failure to train or supervise reflecting deliberate indifference, the agency itself may face liability under Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978).

Building the Record

Force cases are evidence-intensive and the evidence decays fast. Body-worn and dashboard camera footage, jail and holding-cell video, CAD and dispatch logs, radio traffic, conducted-energy-weapon download logs showing each trigger pull and its duration, K-9 deployment records and bite reports, and mandatory use-of-force reports are all subject to retention schedules that can be measured in weeks.

Medical documentation is equally central. Emergency department records, imaging, photographs of injuries taken across several days as bruising develops, and records of any lasting functional limitation all carry more weight than a later narrative. If you were treated and released, follow up with your own physician: gaps in treatment are routinely used to argue that an injury was minor.

Witnesses matter too, and they become harder to find over time. Note the names and contact details of anyone present, and the location of nearby businesses, apartment buildings, parking structures or homes with doorbell cameras whose footage may capture the encounter from a different angle.