Williams v. Baxter

MEMORANDUM TO COUNSEL

NEESE, District Judge.

The plaintiff’s decedent appears from this record in its entirety to have been a citizen who was killed by law-enforcement officers, acting under color of a Tennessee statute or an ordinance of one of its municipalities, by the use of an excessive and unreasonable amount of force. If this was indeed the situation and the individual defendants were in contact with such decedent in a dwelling to enforce the law, it would appear that they may have, “ * * * under color of a statute * * * ” or an “ * * * ordinance * * * ” of a municipality of a “ * * *…