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If the issue was the woman obstructing a law officer, then surely arresting her would have been an appropriate and proportional response? I doubt this would have become a viral story if that was all that ended up happening.
Most people who find the situation outrageous seem to think so because they believe the suspect was truly trying to flee and not hit any of the officers, and they therefore think that the use of deadly force was not appropriate. Separate from any of the facts of the case, is it your position that merely obstructing law officers or fleeing law officers should be punishable by immediate death?
Because I can say that sounds like a cure that is worse than the disease to me.
Fleeing in a car? Yes. If you try to take the police on a car chase where you can slam into random civilians in an attempt to escape you should be shot before you get the chance to take anyone else down. Thinking you could just get away with it if you resist hard enough shouldn't be encouraged.
To make this even slightly possible the penalties for non-murderous lesser crimes should be reduced to reduce the incentive to try and flee.
Tennessee v. Garner supports using deadly force to stop a suspect if they are a danger to the community, and Plumhoff v. Rickard is a case directly supporting shooting such a driver who was considered a deadly threat to others under the totality of the circumstances.
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I disagree. Getting rid of obstruction is a cure that I very much want to solve the disease.
To your question. Yes. I think the police can kill to enforce the law.
This sort of doesn't answer my question. I think everyone except for the most committed anarchists believe it is appropriate for police to kill to enforce the law in at least some circumstances.
What I am interested in is what the limits to your position are? For example, you mentioned voting in your original post as a possible source of law enforcement legitimacy. Given that there is a fair argument that Donald Trump would have won the 2020 elections if not for COVID, and thus it was the democratic will of the people to have harsher lockdowns, under what circumstances do you think it would have been appropriate for law enforcement to kill people who violated curfews or lockdowns in 2020-2022?
I guess I'm curious if you recognize any limiting principle on law enforcement's use of lethal force? Do you hold democratic will above constitutional limits? Do you bite the bullet when your political opponents are in power, and accept that they can pass and enforce laws that might make you a criminal under the right circumstances?
We already crossed this rubicon. Yes they can and did in 2020-2024.
They did. I wasn’t allowed to work or travel to weddings during Covid. They won the election. They enforced their will.
But this situation is different since the person who died used physical force on an officer. I guess I shouldn’t get shot on the street for violating Covid rules but if I hit an officer while violating those rules I am at the mercy of the regime.
I understand that they did that. I'm asking you if you consider that legitimate within your own political beliefs?
Is it just might makes right, and the will of the people as interpreted by whoever is currently in charge, or do you believe that the law or its enforcement can, in principle, be wrong or invalid for some reason?
As another set of examples, do you consider the American Revolutionary War or the American Civil War to be just wars? Is it ever correct to rebel against the current authorities? If so, what circumstances make it correct or legitimate?
Yes. Might makes right. I don’t believe multicultural societies and Democracy are compatible
Revolutionary War from a moral perspective was not just.
But if you win then you win.
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What an interesting question. What do you see as the implications of that statement being either true or false?
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I do personally prefer the old rule that police or civilians can use deadly force to subdue criminals fleeing from a felony. Obstruction would not be a common law felony but thats only relevant for a question where the cop shot her in the back while she's on foot.
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Sure, arresting her would have been reasonable. That's why they tried to do it.
Unfortunately, she tried to escape by driving through the police cordon, and they, understandably, thought she was trying to run one of them over and shot her. It's a tragedy that could have easily been avoided had she 1) not been there or 2) cooperated with the arrest(realistically I doubt she faces charges).
For what it is worth, I think your position and /u/The_Nybbler's are both fairly reasonable takes.
They don't seem to be what /u/Opt-out was saying, hence me asking the question the way I did. I don't believe anyone else in this thread has implied that they think law enforcement officers should kill people who merely obstruct them, and I was trying to clarify whether it was just a sloppily worded post or whether it represented their true opinion on the subject.
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Surely. But when one officer attempted to arrest her, she attempted to flee by driving her car through the space occupied by another officer.
My intention was to clarify /u/Opt-out's exact position. I didn't want to jump to conclusions based on potentially sloppy wording.
I don't know, based on the comment I'm responding to alone, whether they would make the sort of statement you're making here, or whether they would disagree and say that even attempting arrest would not have been necessary in this case, and going straight to trying to kill her would have been appropriate and (potentially) just. Hence my question.
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