Nearly a decade after the tragic death of 24-year-old Ashtian Barnes, the Supreme Court is set to hear Barnes v. Felix, a civil rights case brought by Barnes’s mother to seek accountability for his unnecessary loss.

In a contribution to an article published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Medha Raman, Dale and James J. Pinto Fellow at Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, examines how Barnes v. Felix is an example of just one of the cases that underscores the United States’ inadequate and inconsistent use-of-force standards. The article advocates that deadly force should only be employed when necessary and proportionate, aiming to prevent avoidable and needless deaths.

Read the full article here.