(01-22-2019, 12:18 PM)jagibelieve Wrote:

(01-22-2019, 10:19 AM)jj82284 Wrote: Police officers are charged with not only defending themselves but the community-at-large. Technically speaking a potential perpetrator doesn't have to demonstrate himself to be a direct threat to the police officer he can theoretically be a threat to Society at large or civilians. In this particular case you had somebody walking with a knife out down the street not a bang police command this wasn't a case where someone was unlocking their own door and drop their wallet. In this particular instance I have a hard time finding the mens rea for any type of criminal misconduct.

Police officers are given weapons by the community to protect us from threats. In the event that someone demonstrates poor judgment or even fatal judgment in the execution that particular charge then it makes sense to remove that charge not necessarily challenges him criminally for a lapse in judgment no matter how severe. The purpose of the criminal justice system is to make sure that certain accent repeat it again if you remove someone from the Force then they're not going to have to interact with suspects and make lethal snap decisions about the safety of the community at large with a potentially armed suspect. So for the longest time I have been against the idea of charging and Prosecuting police officers criminally when it can be demonstrated that however flawed their judgment was that it was based on some perception of discharge of Duty as opposed to a personal Vendetta drug deal gone wrong or some type of premeditation.

JJ82284
For the most part I agree with you, but in this case the officer was charged correctly.  An officer is supposed to use enough force to "stop the action".  In this case, when the suspect went down after the first shot the officer should have stopped.

TrivialPursuit,
According to the reports that I have seen the suspect was not shot in the back.

True.  At the same time I think that in 99% of cases of excessive force even in cases where lethal force was used that the first and most appropriate action should be that the officer be removed from the force and not put in that situation again.

Not in the above case you're absolutely right continued fire or worst reloading a weapon for someone that's clearly down probably crosses the line into a form of criminal culpability but I would not put it in the same criminal culpability as first-degree or premeditated murder.

---