Volume 60
Date
2023

Smoke and Seizure: Holding Law Enforcement Accountable for the Use of Chemical Irritants on Lawful Protesters by Means of the Fourth Amendment in the Age of Torres v. Madrid.

by Caitlyn Coffey

On March 7th, 1965, over five hundred people marched in Selma, Alabama to confront the Governor of Alabama for his failure to hold law enforcement accountable after young Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot and murdered by a state trooper. The demonstrators, linked arm-in-arm, were met with a wall of state troopers, gas masks affixed to their faces and clubs in hand. Deputies on horseback charged at the demonstrators to prevent them from crossing the bridge, ensuing in well-documented one-sided violence that will forever stain the image of the United States. Although the demonstration successfully progressed the conversation of the Civil Rights movement due to the undeniable mistreatment of the demonstrators, the infamous photographs of the march from Selma to Montgomery continue to evoke visceral reactions to this day for many.

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