Steven Selbe News Today

In rejecting claims of excessive force and violations of Turner's Fourth Amendment rights, Judge George C. Hanks Jr. wrote that Baytown police officer Juan De La Cruz “could have reasonably believed that Turner posed a threat of serious harm to his life” when he shot and killed her while trying to arrest her at the apartment complex where they both resided.

A panel of federal judges ruled Tuesday that a Texas police officer used excessive force when his patrol dog bit an unarmed woman for roughly one minute, but it said the judicial doctrine known as qualified immunity shielded the officer from the woman’s lawsuit, court records show.