Can police shoot a fleeing suspect?
In a very limited set of circumstances the answer is YES. The key word in that statement is limited. This is one of the most hotly debated issues of our modern era when it comes to law enforcement and the amount of force they use and when they choose to execute it. So what is the legal standard that police rely on when shooting and killing an unarmed fleeing suspect?
In Tennessee v. Garner, the court said this case requires us to determine the constitutionality of the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of an apparently unarmed suspected felon.
That is a question I sometimes ponder myself. I have a hard time thinking someone should be shot and killed if they are unarmed. If a person has been convicted of a felony and it’s the type of felony where you know this guy will kill as many as he can get away with, that would do it for me.
I don’t think of myself as an executioner. I do consider myself a defender of the public.
I am not a law enforcement officer. I would still have to consider what their guidelines would be, but if say Charlie Manson or some such individual was trying to effect an escape and be lost in the body of the populace, I wouldn’t have a problem doing him in.
In that case, I would do so and accept whatever penalty I got, knowing I saved more lives than I took.