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Priority one for anybody in law enforcement is being an effective buffer between the bad guys and the good guys, going home at the end of the shift is a main goal, but accomplishing the mission (getting an established “badguy” off the streets) is goal number one. For that reason, I’m not about to criticize Coop’s chase of the guy into the apartment. Sure its not the safest thing to do from a personal safety standpoint, but it was the most probable one that would result in an arrest. For my money, that’s exactly what he should have done.
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Boy, does that sound familiar. Sounds exactly like me 20 some years ago. Then I learned. It sounds like you're fairly new to the badge (understand, that's not a put down, only an observation). I was full of piss and vinegar too back then. I had to learn the hard way that A. Bad guys do get away on occasion, and B. You're going to screw up too, multiple times, before you see a pension. Cops are not supermen, We're human and we make mistakes. Even if we don't make mistakes, there are BG's that are faster than us, know the neighborhood better than us, are sneakier than us, and the list goes on. The important thing is that you pick yourself back up, dust yourself off, and go on... just a little smarter the next time. There's always tomorrow, and every BG screws up more than once. You just need to learn to be there when he does. I agree that our primary goal, other than public safety and going home at the end of shift, is to put the BG's in the slammer, but you have to look at the whole picture, over 25 or 30 yrs., and not individual failures. If you don't, you'll be a candidate for either demon rum, or a self inflicted death, especially when you come to realize that you're one of the few that cares, and that the prosecutor, the judge, and the general public, don't. Did Coop do the right thing? Who knows? I wasn't there. Even if I had been there, there's no absolute answer because had he acted differently, we don't know for sure what the outcome would have been. The BG might still have gotten away, or far worse yet, Coop might have been killed. I do know that you can't make a career of second guessing yourself. Learn, mature, and always, always, ALWAYS try to do the Right Thing. I don't care what the general public or armchair warriors think, I am paid to take chances; I am not paid to die. EVERY call, every situation is different. Even if it involves the same people, at the same location, only a few minutes later, it is still fluid, dynamic, ever changing, and judgements have to be made, every day, every second, in a split second. There are no guarentees. Right, wrong, or indifferent, I can say that I would have done the same as Coop.