I thought you might be interested in a specific case that occurred in my state. It occurred shortly after the enactment of our first CHL law.
A CHL holder was assaulted by another man in a parking lot. He drew his handgun, and the other guy fled. At that point, he should have let it go, but he chased after the guy -- who jumped in his car.
In order to prevent the assailant from leaving, he shot out his tires. Then, the CHL holder called the police. When they arrived, they arrested the CHL holder for deadly conduct. Witnesses described a woman and child standing nearby when the CHL holder shot the tires, and the jury agreed that he did so recklessly, endangering the occupant and those nearby.
Yes, the guy in the car had just assaulted the CHL holder, but had broken off the assault. At that point, he could no longer claim self-defense. The CHL holder lost his CHL, and with a felony on his record, he'll never get one again.
Some will read this and say: yeah, but he wasn't a law enforcement officer. In Texas, the laws regarding use of force and deadly force in self-defense are essentially the same for everyone. Law enforcement officers only have additional justifications for arrest and search, but those are again specified as force against another person.
Dude I don’t think this has anything to do with the LEO’s shooting out tires to stop someone who is reckless driving. You cannot equate apples with oranges.
The cops use +P personal defense loads which expend all their energy upon impact. Even if they were using FMJ’s which they don’t the rounds would likely have embedded in the pavement or at worst bounced into the undercarriage of the vehicle. So shooting out the tires was really a good option here. That is what they should have done. It would have been a good outcome and they could then have extracted the obviously unarmed and disturbed lady from her car and the whole incident would have been over.
But the nascient point here is that what was on display that day was the new stasi with their shoot first and worry about it later attitude. This is not traditional standard law enforcement and we all need to acknowlege it . Otherwise who will save our society?