Quote:
|
Haven't we seen enough police officers fired,even imprisoned because they misjudged a situation?
|
I think you touch on a good point. One of the things that these conversations often miss is those officers MAY have made the right decision in some of those cases. However the public perception, the half stories, and the inability to adequately articulate the need for the use of deadly force all worked against them. Certainly not in all of the situations, perhaps not in most, and perhaps not in any but we cannot deny it is a real possibility.
We can't even come up with a system to crown a national college football champion without controversy and yet we seem to think that a good shoot / bad shot and good guy / bad guy situation is going to be instantly and correctly judged. We have mountains of evidence and studies that indicate any witness accounts may be inaccurate, our own account may be inaccurate, videos may fail to show important details, and other details may flat out be falsely reported and yet somehow we cling to this notion that "a good shoot is a good shoot" It's simply not true. Juries, investigators, and prosecutors can be swayed by little things. "I shot for the head because i wanted to be sure he stayed down" may be one of those things.
No shoot is, IMO, ever a good shoot. It may be necessary and it may be legally justified but there is no such thing as a good shoot. The fact that the need for deadly force arose and you forced to use it renders the situation a negative.