The precise reason they should be even MORE careful. An errant round can hit an innocent bystander.
The cops are humans in a job which requires no human failings.
It is one of the toughest jobs around. Personally, I'm all for ending the stupid notion that evidence can be tossed-out due to a failure to issue the Miranda Warning (since every citizen cannot claim ignorance of the law, can't they also be expected to know the two-paragraph Miranda, which every 6th grader knows from TV?). Make it easier for public servants to do their jobs (cops and teachers especially), BUT ALSO make sure that those who fail to do their job well are easily removed or sanctioned for those failures. I'm not expecting anything unreasonable here.
I doubt that the cops in this incident are high fiving themselves over this situation, but are aware and angry by pompous critics who think that they know everyhthing and who will demonize them unceasingly over this tragic situation caused by the car stealing punk.
The reason they aren't high-fiving is that they know they did wrong. Every (decent) person who takes a life is forever changed by it. Here, the cop took a life unnecessarily, and he did it while representing the State. He should not be excused for his blunder. He should get plenty of moral support during his punishment (and I would be happy to join in if the mistakes they made are truly sincere, as those here probably are)... but I can't stand it when the proper process is perverted simply because the police volunteer for a tough job.
I sure as heck would have expected to be tossed out on my butt if I ever did anything in my classroom that cost a life, even accidentally. I would accept the moral support from my friends while I looked for a new job, and would be sure to never stop apologizing to the family I wronged. However, if I were to see no consequences and my fellow teachers came to my defense, and my school board refused to sanction me in any way, I would really have to wonder if they were truly there for the public, or if they were there to "protect their own".
To get down to root motivations, my real beef is that those who represent the State (cops and politicians especially) are usually allowed to skate while the rest of us are held to ever-tougher punishments (including the death penalty for stealing an SUV, judging by this thread).
Huh I guess you would get mad at a soldier in the desert if he shot an enemy combatant dead for trying to steal communication equipment.
Like it or not cops have to deal with war zones.
This is all about envy to you isn't. Not about the facts that cops have to work in war zones every day.