Six years after her son was killed by a Seattle police officer involved in multiple deadly encounters, a federal judge cleared the way for Rose Johnson’s excessive force lawsuit to move forward.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Zilly set a tentative trial date of Sept. 15 after an appeals court this year rejected the officer’s claim of qualified immunity, the much-debated legal doctrine that can shield police officers from civil rights claims.
The ruling on March 3 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a sign of the incremental change unfolding in courts and statehouses across the country as legislative efforts to reform qualified immunity in Congress have stalled.
To Johnson, who filed the Seattle lawsuit after police fatally shot her son seconds after they kicked down his door on May 8, 2019, the panel’s decision was an important victory on a long and arduous road of trying to heal…