Nine Minutes on the Pavement

Police were called about a man who had passed a fake twenty-dollar bill. Officers handcuffed him and put him face down on the street. One officer pressed a knee on his neck and another knee on his back for about nine and a half minutes while the man said he could not breathe. Bystanders, including an off-duty firefighter, begged the officers to help him. They did not. The man died. The medical examiner said his heart and lungs stopped because of the restraint. The law here asks whether the force the officer used was unreasonable.