Victor Steen

Seventeen-year-old Victor Steen died after a Pensacola officer used a Taser during a bicycle pursuit and a police car struck him on October 3, 2009.

What happened

Victor Demarius Steen, age seventeen, was riding a bicycle in Pensacola, Florida, around 1:50 a.m. when officer Jerald Ard began following and ordered him to stop. A federal court later examined patrol-car video and a lawsuit alleging Ard drove alongside the bicycle, fired a Taser at Steen without warning and then struck or ran over him with the patrol vehicle after the teenager fell. The officer's account and the mother's civil-rights claims differed about the Taser use and collision. Steen died of injuries sustained during the encounter. The case raises serious questions about deadly hazards created by pursuit tactics over an initial bicycle stop.

Investigation & findings

In the federal lawsuit Steen v. City of Pensacola, the court considered claims about use of the Taser and vehicle; an order granted qualified immunity to the police chief on a supervisory claim, which was not a wholesale resolution of the underlying wrongful-death allegations. He was not killed by a gunshot, so the Sheet's earlier shooting label needed correction.

What happened

Investigation & findings

Sources & records