The Harmon family sued Salt Lake City police and Officer Clinton Fox, alleging racial bias (Harmon is Black and the officer is white), excessive force and a violation of Harmon’s constitutional rights on the part of police. A judge dismissed some of the lawsuit, ruling that what officers did was “legally, objectively reasonable” but also allowing some claims of racial bias to go forward in state court.
The Harmon family asked the 10th Circuit Court to revive the lawsuit and have a jury decide.
“The inescapable inference from these allegations is Mr. Harmon did not pose a serious and immediate threat to the officers the moment he was killed,” Lutz argued to the judges.
The police body camera video was a key part of the arguments, with both Lutz and Katherine Nichol, the attorney for Salt Lake City, calling the judges attention to it.
“As I saw the video, they never ordered him to drop anything and the only statement that was audible was the officer yelling ‘I’ll f—ing shoot you,'” Judge Keith Kelly said in the hearing.
“That’s correct, your honor. That was the only command, as you can call it, that was issued to Mr. Harmon,” Lutz replied.