Arms and the speeder

To understand what Timothy Scott did, you must first understand what Victor Harris did not do.

At about 10:45 on the night of March 29, 2001, Mr. Harris was driving his Cadillac at 73 miles per hour down a two-lane highway where the limit was 55. Coweta County, Ga., Deputy Sheriff Clinton Reynolds, waiting by the side of the road as backup for a drug sting unfolding nearby, flashed his blue lights at Mr. Harris to get him to slow down. Mr. Harris did not.

Deputy Reynolds turned on his siren, pulled onto the highway and tried to get Mr. Harris to pull over. Mr. Harris did not.

Instead, according to a brief that the U.S. solicitor general filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Harris sped up, driving “in excess of 100 miles per hour” in the direction of the neighborhoods and shopping districts of Peachtree City, Ga.

Deputy Reynolds told a dispatcher he was chasing the Cadillac. Deputy Timothy Scott — also waiting as backup for the drug sting and not told whether the fleeing Cadillac had anything to do with the sting — took off to assist Deputy Reynolds.

With both deputies pursuing, Mr. Harris hurtled into Peachtree City, turned into the parking lot of a shopping center and drove past two parked squad cars with policemen inside. Deputy Scott raced around the periphery of the lot on city streets, hoping to block Mr. Harris at the exit.

Here there is a factual dispute: Did the Cadillac collide with the deputy’s car, or did the deputy’s car collide with the Cadillac? There is no dispute, however, about whether Mr. Harris stopped after the collision. He did not.

Instead, he fled up another highway “reaching speeds of at least 90 miles per hour.”

There is also no dispute about whether Mr. Harris should have refrained, as he was fleeing, from repeatedly crossing double-yellow lines and passing cars on the wrong side of the highway. He did not. Nor is there a dispute about whether Mr. Harris stopped when he came to red lights. He did not.

Now, it could have been that I would be writing today that this chase ended when Mr. Harris drove his Cadillac head-on into a van full of high school kids. He did not — thank God. He killed no one that night.

You see, Deputy Scott made a decision. Realizing Mr. Harris posed a threat to innocent people, he secured approval from his supervisor to try to stop Mr. Harris with a “Precision Intervention Technique,” which is designed to bump a fleeing vehicle at such an angle that it spins to a stop. Because Mr. Harris was driving so fast, however, Deputy Scott could only manage to bump the Cadillac in the rear. He waited to do so where the road was flat and free of traffic.

The Cadillac careened off the pavement and rolled over.

Mr. Harris, of course, should have fastened his seat belt. Alas, he did not. He is now a paraplegic.

Even so, you might have thought Mr. Harris would end up in court, considering all the things he did not do. And he did. But he is not the one in trouble. Deputy Scott is.

Mr. Harris sued him. He argues Deputy Scott’s action that night violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from “unreasonable” seizures. The case was argued in the Supreme Court on Monday.

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