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Policing The Police: Clarifying The Test For Holding The Government Liable Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 And The State-Created Danger Theory, Jeremy D. Kernodle
Policing The Police: Clarifying The Test For Holding The Government Liable Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 And The State-Created Danger Theory, Jeremy D. Kernodle
Vanderbilt Law Review
On October 20, 1980, as Barbara Piotrowski left a donut shop, a man hired by her ex-boyfriend to kill her shot her four times in the chest. Within twenty-four hours, the Houston Police Department ("HPD") arrested the gunman and his driver and obtained heir confessions. Piotrowski's millionaire ex-boyfriend moved to England and was never arrested nor brought to trial.
Fifteen years later, Piotrowski sued the City of Houston under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for depriving her of her constitutional right to life and liberty and equal protection. She based her lawsuit primarily on information that a month before the shooting, …