Minnesota’s Legislature has written a use-of-force rule that is harder for an officer to satisfy than the United States Constitution requires. That is the single most important thing to understand about Minn. Stat. § 609.066, and it means that one police shooting in Minnesota gets measured against two different standards that do not ask the same question.
The federal standard, which comes from Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386 (1989), asks whether a use of force was objectively reasonable under the totality of the circumstances. The Minnesota standard, in § 609.066, subd. 2, asks whether deadly force was necessary, and then attaches three additional requirements to the threat that supposedly made it necessary. Necessity is a more demanding word than reasonableness, and the three-part threat test has no counterpart in the constitutional case law.
This article walks the statute. Two companion pieces take up the other halves of the problem: the federal reasonableness standard as the Eighth Circuit actually applies it in Minnesota cases, in our article on Graham and objective reasonableness, and deadly force against a fleeing suspect, in our article on Tennessee v. Garner.
The operative rule: subdivision 2(a)
The heart of the statute is a single sentence with a conditional structure. Subdivision 2, paragraph (a) provides:
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 609.06 or 609.065, the use of deadly force by a peace officer in the line of duty is justified only if an objectively reasonable officer would believe, based on the totality of the circumstances known to the officer at the time and without the benefit of hindsight, that such force is necessary:
Three features of that sentence do work.
First, “only if.” The statute is written as a limitation, not a grant. Deadly force is justified in the enumerated situations and nowhere else.
Second, “necessary.” The federal test does not require that force be necessary. It requires that force be reasonable, which is a range rather than a threshold. A reasonable officer can often choose among several reasonable options; the statute asks whether this one was needed.
Third, the statute keeps the federal perspective rules while tightening the substance. It measures the officer against “an objectively reasonable officer,” on “the totality of the circumstances known to the officer at the time,” and “without the benefit of hindsight.” Those phrases are lifted almost directly from Fourth Amendment doctrine. Minnesota did not abandon the officer’s-eye view. It kept the viewpoint and raised the bar.
The three-part threat test
Under subdivision 2(a)(1), deadly force may be necessary “to protect the peace officer or another from death or great bodily harm, provided that the threat:”
- “(i) can be articulated with specificity;”
- “(ii) is reasonably likely to occur absent action by the law enforcement officer; and”
- “(iii) must be addressed through the use of deadly force without unreasonable delay.”
Those three items are cumulative. A generalized fear does not satisfy item (i). A speculative or contingent danger does not satisfy item (ii). A threat that could have been addressed later, or another way, does not satisfy item (iii).
There is no equivalent list in Graham. Graham directs courts to weigh “the severity of the crime at issue, whether the suspect poses an immediate threat to the safety of the officers or others, and whether he is actively resisting arrest or attempting to evade arrest by flight,” 490 U.S. at 396 — a balancing of factors, not a set of elements each of which must be met. The difference between a weighing test and a checklist is the whole ballgame in a close case.
Arrest and escape: subdivision 2(a)(2) is conjunctive
The second justification, in subdivision 2(a)(2), covers using deadly force “to effect the arrest or capture, or prevent the escape, of a person whom the peace officer knows or has reasonable grounds to believe has committed or attempted to commit a felony and the officer reasonably believes that the person will cause death or great bodily harm to another person under the threat criteria in clause (1), items (i) to (iii), unless immediately apprehended.”
Read the “and.” A felony alone is not enough. The officer must also reasonably believe the person will cause death or great bodily harm unless immediately apprehended — and that belief must satisfy the same three threat criteria from clause (1). Both halves are required. Reading this clause as though a felony by itself authorizes deadly force inverts the rule. That is the point taken up at length in the Garner piece.
Subdivision 2(b): danger the person poses to self
Paragraph (b) addresses a fact pattern that recurs constantly in real encounters — a person in crisis who is a danger to himself. It provides that an officer
shall not use deadly force against a person based on the danger the person poses to self if an objectively reasonable officer would believe, based on the totality of the circumstances known to the officer at the time and without the benefit of hindsight, that the person does not pose a threat of death or great bodily harm to the peace officer or to another under the threat criteria in paragraph (a), clause (1), items (i) to (iii).
The prohibition is conditional, not absolute. What it forecloses is treating self-directed danger as a substitute for danger to others. If the person also presents a threat to the officer or a third party that meets the three criteria, paragraph (b) does not bar force. If the danger runs only inward, it does.
What counts as “deadly force”
Subdivision 1 defines the term, and the definition is broader than “shooting someone.” Deadly force “means force which the actor uses with the purpose of causing, or which the actor should reasonably know creates a substantial risk of causing, death or great bodily harm.”
The subdivision then makes one category automatic: “The intentional discharge of a firearm, other than a firearm loaded with less lethal munitions and used by a peace officer within the scope of official duties, in the direction of another person, or at a vehicle in which another person is believed to be, constitutes deadly force.” Firing at an occupied vehicle is deadly force by definition — no argument about whether the officer meant to kill anyone. “Peace officer” carries the meaning given in Minn. Stat. § 626.84, subd. 1.
The legislative intent subdivision
Subdivision 1a is unusual: a set of legislative findings written directly into the criminal code. It declares “that every person has a right to be free from excessive use of force by officers acting under color of law,” and states that “as set forth below, it is the intent of the legislature that peace officers use deadly force only when necessary in defense of human life or to prevent great bodily harm.”
It also preserves the officer’s perspective — the decision “shall be evaluated from the perspective of a reasonable officer in the same situation, based on the totality of the circumstances known to or perceived by the officer at the time, rather than with the benefit of hindsight” — and adds that officers “should exercise special care when interacting with individuals with known physical, mental health, developmental, or intellectual disabilities.”
Subdivision 1a is new law, and the present structure of subdivision 2 — the objective-officer framing, the three-part threat test, and paragraph (b) — dates to the 2020 second special session. See Laws 2020, 2d Spec. Sess., ch. 1 (H.F. No. 1), an act “relating to public safety” that, among other things, provided a “duty to intercede and report for peace officers,” regulated “use of force,” and prohibited “warrior-style” training. Subdivision 2 was amended once more in 2023; the change was narrow, striking the words “by the law enforcement officer” from item (i), so that the threat must simply “be articulated with specificity.” The 2020 act also created the restraint limitations in Minn. Stat. § 609.06, subd. 3, discussed in our article on the choke-hold and prone-restraint rules.
The part people get wrong: what § 609.066 does in a civil case
Section 609.066 sits in chapter 609 — the criminal code. Its operative word is “justified.” It defines when an officer’s use of deadly force is lawful for purposes of criminal responsibility. Nothing in its text creates a civil cause of action, and nothing in its text says that an officer who violates it is civilly liable.
Whether a violation of § 609.066 has civil consequences — as negligence per se, as evidence of the standard of care, as a predicate for a state tort claim, or not at all — is not answered by the statute, and we did not locate controlling Minnesota appellate authority resolving it while researching this article. Anyone who tells you the answer is obvious should be asked for the citation.
Two textual signals are worth noting on either side of that question. Subdivision 3 shows the Legislature was thinking about civil litigation when it wrote this section: it provides that “[t]his section and sections 609.06, 609.065 and 629.33 may not be used as a defense in a civil action brought by an innocent third party.” That is a targeted civil rule, addressed to one situation. The Legislature knew how to speak to civil actions and, in this section, did so only there.
On the other side, the statute is not merely hortatory. It has real enforcement channels outside the criminal courtroom. Minn. Stat. § 626.8452, subd. 1, requires every law enforcement agency head to maintain a written use-of-force policy that “must be consistent with the provisions of section 609.066, subdivision 2.” Subdivision 1a of that section requires the model policy to include a duty for officers “to only use deadly force including techniques that are restricted by section 609.06, subdivision 3, as authorized in section 609.066,” and requires that “less lethal measures be considered first by the officer.” And Minn. Stat. § 626.8475 makes it a disciplinable breach for an officer to fail to intercede when “present and observing another peace officer using force in violation of section 609.066, subdivision 2, or otherwise beyond that which is objectively reasonable under the circumstances,” or to fail to report such force in writing within 24 hours.
So the statute has teeth in criminal prosecution, in agency policy, and in officer licensing. Its role in a damages case is the open question.
Two standards, one incident
The practical consequence is that the same encounter can come out differently depending on which body of law is asking.
A federal excessive-force claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is measured by the Fourth Amendment, and the Supreme Court has been explicit that state law does not set that measure. In Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164 (2008), the Court held that an arrest supported by probable cause did not violate the Fourth Amendment even though state law prohibited it, concluding that “while States are free to regulate such arrests however they desire, state restrictions do not alter the Fourth Amendment’s protections,” id. at 176, and that “it is not the province of the Fourth Amendment to enforce state law,” id. at 178. Minnesota can hold its officers to a stricter rule. Doing so does not, by itself, change what the federal Constitution requires.
That cuts both directions. Conduct that clears the Fourth Amendment can still violate § 609.066 — with consequences in a criminal charging decision, in an agency’s internal discipline, and before the Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training. Conduct that violates § 609.066 does not automatically produce a winning federal claim, because the federal claim has its own standard and its own immunity defense. Sorting out which track a given set of facts belongs on is the first real question in any of these cases. If a city is a potential defendant, the state-law track carries its own notice requirements and its own immunities — see suing a Minnesota city for injuries and Minnesota’s municipal immunity exceptions.
About this firm
Madgett Law, LLC is a Minneapolis firm that litigates civil rights and police misconduct claims in Minnesota state and federal court, alongside its personal injury and general litigation practice. If you are trying to understand how Minnesota’s use-of-force statutes apply to something that happened to you or to someone in your family, we can look at it with you. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 609.066, subds. 1 (deadly force defined), 1a (legislative intent, clauses (1)–(4)), 2(a) (including clause (1), items (i)–(iii), and clause (2)), 2(b), and 3 (no defense), retrieved from the Office of the Revisor of Statutes, revisor.mn.gov; Minn. Stat. § 609.066 history line (2Sp2020 c 1 s 9, 10); Minn. Stat. § 626.8452, subds. 1 and 1a(3); Minn. Stat. § 626.8475(a)–(c); Laws 2020, 2d Spec. Sess., ch. 1 (H.F. No. 1), act title; Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 396 (1989) (severity/immediate threat/active resistance factors); Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 176, 178 (2008) (state restrictions do not alter Fourth Amendment protections; Fourth Amendment does not enforce state law).
This article is general information about Minnesota law. It is not legal advice, it does not create an attorney–client relationship, and it does not promise or imply any particular outcome. Statutes change; verify the current text before relying on it.