Police use of force must be justified each time force is applied, but officers and courts do not evaluate each shot in isolation. In Spencer v. Glaser, the 4th Circuit held that an officer could consider a man’s earlier armed advance when assessing his renewed movement seconds later. The case applies the Supreme Court’s totality-of-the-circumstances approach and shows why prior conduct remains relevant when a threat appears to change.
Spencer v. Glaser, 2026 WL 2235303 (4th Cir. 2026).
When an officer fires multiple shots, must each shot be evaluated separately? Yes, without a doubt. But that does not mean everything that happened before the later shots disappears from the analysis. That distinction was central to the recent decision in Spencer v. Glaser.
In Manteo, North Carolina, deputies responded to a 911 call requesting medical assistance for Sylvester Selby. When they arrived, Selby emerged from the house carrying a kitchen knife and an apple, one in each hand. He was also bleeding from what appeared to be a chest wound. Deputy Edward Glaser and another deputy repeatedly ordered Selby to drop the knife. Selby did not comply. Instead, he came down the porch steps and moved toward the deputies. Deputy Glaser fired once. Selby stumbled backwards, tripped over a bicycle, and fell to the ground. He dropped both the apple and the knife.
If the encounter had ended there, the force analysis would have been relatively straightforward. But it did not end there.
Selby thrashed around on the ground for approximately 12 seconds. He attempted to stand up, managed to get to his hands and knees, then lunged toward Deputy Glaser. Deputy Glaser fired two more shots. Selby died from his wounds.
“A person’s conduct seconds earlier may significantly affect how a reasonable officer perceives the person’s next movement.”
Selby’s estate sued Deputy Glaser, alleging excessive force. The plaintiff did not seriously challenge the first shot. After all, Selby had approached the deputies with a knife despite commands to drop it. The dispute concerned the second and third shots, which were fired after Selby had fallen and no longer held the knife. The plaintiff argued that the threat justifying the first shot had ended. Selby was on the ground and the knife was no longer in his hand. The later shots, the plaintiff argued, therefore had to be evaluated without relying on the circumstances that justified the first shot. The appellate court disagreed.
The U.S. Supreme Court addressed the proper time frame for evaluating force in Barnes v. Felix, which we analyzed in 2025. Courts may not isolate the precise instant when an officer fires and disregard the events that led to that moment. Instead, Graham v. Connor requires consideration of the totality of the circumstances. As the Court explained in Barnes, that inquiry has “no time limit” – a principle that worked in Deputy Glaser’s favor in Spencer.
The second and third shots had to be justified when they were fired, but Deputy Glaser was not required to forget what had happened several seconds earlier. Selby had emerged holding a knife, ignored commands to drop it, descended from the porch, and moved toward the deputies. Deputy Glaser had fired in response to that threat. Selby attempted to rise 12 seconds later, lunging toward Deputy Glaser.
The fact that Selby had dropped the knife was important. But it was not the only fact Deputy Glaser could consider. The appellate court explained that Barnes required the court to consider Selby’s earlier conduct in determining how a reasonable officer could interpret his later movement. An officer who had just confronted an armed man advancing with a knife was not required to view the man’s renewed movement moments later as though the encounter had begun at that instant.
There is an important lesson here for use of force analysis. Each use of force must remain justified when it occurs. An officer cannot continue using deadly force merely because deadly force was justified several seconds earlier. If the threat ends, the justification for deadly force may end with it.
But analyzing each use of force separately does not mean analyzing it in isolation. Officers make decisions based on what they have just seen and experienced. A person’s conduct seconds earlier may significantly affect how a reasonable officer perceives the person’s next movement. That is particularly true during a rapidly changing armed confrontation.
Spencer also provides a useful lesson about body camera evidence. Because the case was dismissed at the pleading stage, the court ordinarily would have been required to accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true. But the complaint incorporated body camera recordings of the encounter. When video evidence clearly contradicts an allegation, a court is not required to accept the allegation over what the recording unmistakably shows.
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There are limits to that principle. The trial court concluded the body camera video showed that uneven terrain caused the deputies to stumble as Selby approached them. The appellate court said the recording did not establish that fact clearly enough to disregard contrary allegations in the complaint. Body camera footage may show that an officer moved backward. It may not establish why. It may show a person’s arm moving, without establishing the person’s intent. And because a body camera records from a different position and with different visual characteristics than the human eye, it does not necessarily establish precisely what the officer perceived.
Spencer offers two useful reminders. First, every separate application of force must be justified by the circumstances existing when it is used. Second, those circumstances include what happened immediately before it.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Barnes v. Felix rejected an artificially narrow snapshot approach to use of force. Spencer demonstrates the other side of that principle. The broader time frame required by Barnes does not only expose questionable decisions officers made before using force. It may also explain why an officer reasonably perceived a renewed threat after the circumstances appeared, briefly, to have changed.
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