So when do you start the killing? Immediately, or do you wait to see if the looting will escalate into a total breakdown? I value human life too much, to make myself the judge on that call. If someone, is directly threatening the well-being of someone, then by all means, take tha appropriate action. If someone is stealing manufactured items, take the appropriate action, which in this case is apprehension. I just do not think the appropriate action with looters, is to kill them. They arrest looters in Fl, when they have these problems, they do not shoot them. Why shoot them in LA?
When you "apprehend" them, where are you going to put them? The jail is flooded. They let all the prisoners go, and they are now in the Superdome (which is one of the reasons they're having so many problems over there.) How many police officers are you willing to take off protection and search and rescue to guard a bunch of prisoners standing around in a flooded parking lot?
The reason looters are shot on sight is that there is not enough law enforcement to arrest and hold them and no place to put them.
In Florida, they arrested them if they had the facilities and manpower to do so (some communities did). In NO, the breakdown has been total and police didn't even attempt to arrest the looters because they were completely outnumbered. Their only viable course was to pick off the ringleaders, which would have discouraged the rest.
Don't you see that your "value human life too much" attitude has resulted in MORE deaths, and MORE suffering, than if law enforcement had dealt out the traditional and customary penalty to the first few looters? Then you would have had a few wrongdoers dead, instead of many, many elderly and children dying of thirst, exposure and drowning on rooftops and in attics.