What strategies do you use to show that officers failed to follow appropriate de-escalation?

The way we would show a court that a police officer did not follow de-escalation procedures properly is by going through the use of force continuum. There’s a use of force continuum which they’re trained in which tells them if somebody does A, you do B. If somebody does C, you do D, and so on and so forth. You’re only allowed to use a reasonable amount of force in response to force that’s being used against you. And there’s a use of force continuum, whether you can put your hands on the person, whether or not you can use non-deadly force or less lethal force or ultimately lethal force. There’s an entire chain that an officer has to go through before they’re allowed to escalate.

The Fourth Amendment and 14th Amendment require that a police officer uses the least amount of force reasonably necessary to effectuate an arrest. Once they cross that line and use more force than is reasonably necessary, that officer may potentially be sued for a civil rights violation of excessive force.