Quote:
Originally Posted by ungawa
Edits in bold mine.
Like I always say, police should be held to higher standards for shootings than civilians, not lower standards. That's the way it always was until recent decades.
When I find myself faced with an armed adversary, it will not because I swore to protect the citizenry nor because I volunteered for that honorable task. I will just be looking to save myself from a situation that is not of my making, and I will fail and die because I can’t shoot people in the back. People that actually came after me in the first place, unlike this situation.
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I don't think it's just a matter of standards. Even if we assume that a citizen could not shoot under the same circumstances (and I'm not saying I agree with that since we don't know the exact circumstances), the situation of an armed BG fleeing a cop and an armed BG fleeing a citizen aren't the same. If you draw on a BG and he runs, you are under no duty to pursue him. A cop has an obligation to pursue the BG, and the BG knows this. Thus the BG has a greater incentive to shoot at the cop than he would to shoot at a citizen.
The law recognizes that an
armed BG fleeing a cop still presents a danger that warrants the use of deadly force:
Quote:
§ 508. Use of force in law enforcement.
(a) Peace officer's use of force in making arrest.--
A peace officer, or any person whom he has summoned or directed to assist him, need not retreat or desist from efforts to make a lawful arrest because of resistance or threatened resistance to the arrest. He is justified in the use of any force which he believes to be necessary to effect the arrest and of any force which he believes to be necessary to defend himself or another from bodily harm while making the arrest. However, he is justified in using deadly force only when he believes that such force is necessary to prevent death or serious bodily injury to himself or such other person, or when he believes both that:
such force is necessary to prevent the arrest from being defeated by resistance or escape; and
the person to be arrested has committed or attempted a forcible felony or is attempting to escape and possesses a deadly weapon, or otherwise indicates that he will endanger human life or inflict serious bodily injury unless arrested without delay.
A peace officer making an arrest pursuant to an invalid warrant is justified in the use of any force which he would be justified in using if the warrant were valid, unless he knows that the warrant is invalid.
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In my opinion, the moral of the story is that you should not run from the police. And if you must run from the police, don't do it while armed. And if you really must run from the police while armed, don't carry in such a way that you need to put your hand on the freaking gun and shout "I've got a gun!" while running from the police.