Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.29] on Sunday, November 23, 2014 at 16:53:43 :
In Reply to: Re: Call him an "idiot" to his face posted by gmharris [71.105.34.147] on Sunday, November 23, 2014 at 16:35:23 :
I think you missed the setting. They'd chased this guy 50 miles on the freeway, spiked his tires, and then he was driving all over town at max speed (those fancy thin tires on tall rims make excellent run-flats). Finally had him stopped in downtown with people all around. He was only threatening himself, but he could have lowered the gun and blasted the crowd in any direction in 2 seconds. So in a real sense, everyone was a "hostage". Now maybe that's a good reason to shoot him right then and there. On the other hand the sharpshooter just might hit some member of the public as well. Not a lot of time to move everybody out of the way either. Remember that shoot-out in New York a few years ago when all the injured people were members of the public shot by cops?
Look, we Monday-morning quarterbacks can disagree. I wasn't at the after-action briefing in the cop shop so I don't know how it was discussed on the inside. Judging only from the results, not from the "what if"s, it was a success. I thought the guy was on meth, as he was real skinny and had his shirt off in cold weather, but it turned out he was "just" mental and off his meds. Somewhere, presumably, he has a mother who loves him and is glad he survived to get his head screwed back on straight.
But as for your lawsuit scenario, there's virtually no prospect of that succeeding even when the cops actually do kill the guy. A lawsuit over a suicidal guy accidentally killing himself whilst being apprehended would give the judge a good laugh, and that's about it.
Now back to our regularly-scheduled program...