Patrick V. Murphy

It limited deadly force to defending life and banned warning shots. It became the standard in major cities within a few years.

In August 1972, as New York City Police Commissioner, Patrick V. Murphy introduced a policy restricting the use of deadly force to situations involving the defense of life, replacing the traditional fleeing felon rule. The policy also prohibited discharging firearms as warning shots, as calls for assistance, or at or from moving vehicles. Criminal justice professor Samuel Walker later wrote that, within a few years, the defense-of-life policy was the standard policy in major cities across the country. Murphy kept pressing the issue after leaving New York: in 1980 delegates to the International Association of Chiefs of Police rejected his resolution calling for departmental restrictions on deadly force by a 4 to 1 margin, and in 1982 the association's leadership censured him. In 1985 the Supreme Court decision in Tennessee v. Garner forbade shooting nonviolent fleeing property crime suspects, in line with the policy he had introduced in 1972.