Police shot 3 lunch patrons in store robbery

[ELB]

Hmmm. I am not quite willing to give the officers in this situation an automatic pass on this deal...and I have to admit, it's because I don't think a non-LEO shooter would so quickly get a pass. I have no problem second-guessing the officers, because if I ever am in the same situation, the officers and everybody else will certainly be second-guessing me.

Some points for consideration:

Don't know who fired first. If the robber started firing, then of course anyone in the area who is armed should be shooting back, immediately.

However, if he "merely" displayed the gun, had "the drop" on everyone, and told everyone to hand over their wallets, then why didn't everyone, including the cops, do so, instead of using the bystanders as backstops? After all, seems to be a common refrain from many police departments that the money/property is not worth shooting someone over? To grab a similar (in spirit) quote from another thread on this forum about a carjacking:

Money quote from police officer: Quote:
"Make the situation safe for you. You know you have to get away from that person. Just try to give the car up."

http://www.11alive.com/news/article_new ... yid=106124

To make this point clearer, perhaps, insert me into the police officers' positon: I shoot 12 times, miss slightly over half the shots, and hit three innocent bystanders. Is the police chief going to hail me as a hero for saving lives? Or, courtesy of the police and the DA, am I going to be looking at this:

PC §9.05. RECKLESS INJURY OF INNOCENT THIRD PERSON.
Even though an actor is justified under this chapter in threatening or
using force or deadly force against another, if in doing so he also recklessly
injures or kills an innocent third person, the justification afforded
by this chapter is unavailable in a prosecution for the reckless injury or
killing of the innocent third person.

I do not see the justification being different for the cops than for me. Deadly force is used to prevent imminent threat to life or serious injury. (yes there is an exception for certain night time property thefts, and I think for cops a bit about fleeing felons, but these are very narrow exceptions).

Yes cops are supposed to enforce the law and apprehend bad guys, but they have a lot of discretion on how to do so. Could they have (just like a citizen) forked over their $$, and (like any good citizen) taken very good note of the robber's appearance; then waited until he was out the door before calling for reinforcements and chasing after him?

And yes there may be details of which we are unaware -- perhaps the cops recognized this guy as a particularly notorious and lethal thug; perhaps they thought he would recognize them and start shooting -- may be the thug did start shooting first -- etc.

All in all, I am glad the cops bagged the guy, and I am sorry the bystanders got shot. There were probably not any good, clear answers on how to solve the problem when the robber came in. I hope the cops go with their careers (and practice one helluva lot more). I just have some doubt that I would get such instantaneous absolution from the local authorities if it were me "saving lives," but I don't see how the situation would be logically different.

elb

[frankie_the_yankee]

And I will still say that if someone was pointing a gun at me, and I thought for one second that they were gonna shoot, there is no way I could stop myself from attempting to draw and shoot them first, no matter what was behind him.

If bystanders got injured or even killed by my actions, I would feel sorry for that, but I would not think my actions were "reckless". As for the jury, who knows?

At least I'd be around to hear their verdict.

[NcongruNt]

All I know is that if a BG was pointing a gun at me I do not think I could keep myself from drawing and shooting (trying to anyway) no matter who or what was behind him, with the possible exception of my wife or kids.

It's all well and good to talk about having or not having a good angle, etc. But there's a point where the natural urge of self preservation will kick in.

I can't see how such a shooting could ever be termed "reckless", no matter how things turned out.

This is why I practice shooting from a crouching/one knee position. There are so many situations where there may be bystanders directly behind a BG, that I want to make sure I could put them out of the line of fire if at all possible.

Unfortunately, there's no way to live fire practice more than about a 30 degree upward angle (due to no berm coverage behind the shot), so the closer-range shots have to be practiced in dry fire. This may be an area where buying an airsoft equivalent of my carry gun would probably be very useful.