The police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked nationwide protests calling for reforms in police practices. The center of attention was use of force by state and local law enforcement officers. Section 1983 provides a remedy for constitutional violations by state and local officers. The §1983 remedy is subject to numerous defenses. The public trained its attention on the defense of qualified immunity, which protects the officer from liability so long as she did not violate clearly established federal law. Numerous jurists and academics across the country have called for the elimination or modification of qualified immunity, but the Supreme Court so far has left it firmly in place.

With so much attention placed on use of force by state and local law enforcement officers, excessive force by federal law enforcement officials was initially lost in the shuffle. But that changed when the president deployed hundreds of law enforcement officers decked out in tactical gear to several cities, allegedly to protect federal property from damage by protestors. The federal officers were deployed from, inter alia, the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the Department of Homeland Security; the United States Marshals Service; and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It didn’t take long for citizens in the affected cities to charge that the federal agents were violating the Fourth Amendment by, inter alia, making arrests without probable cause, and employing excessive force.

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