The recent chaos in Ferguson, Missouri all stemmed from the shooting of Michael Brown,
an unarmed African American teenager.
Brown was shot by an on-duty Police Officer, something that is happening to unarmed people
in the US way more often than it should.
Most would argue that it shouldn’t happen at all.
Which brings up the question, why are police allowed to use lethal force?
Let’s look first at when the police are allowed and not allowed to use lethal force.
The Fourth Amendment establishes “The right of the people to be secure in their persons…against
unreasonable searches and seizures...”.
This is the wording in the constitution that is designed to protect you from police brutality.
Officers aren’t allowed to use unreasonable force when arresting you, and most of the
time killing you falls under the category of unreasonable force.
I say most of the time because there are two supreme court cases that have established
guidelines for when it is legally permissible for police to use lethal force.
They can use it to protect their lives and the lives of others in times of immediate
danger.
And they can use it to prevent a suspect from escaping if the officer reasonably believes
that “the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the
officer or others.”
(quote from Justice White who delivered the Court Opinion)
In both scenarios what is reasonable is based on the ideal of what any other reasonable
police officer would do in the same situation.
Of course, what is or isn’t reasonable is always going to be a grey area.
That answers the legal side of the question, but there are also procedural aspects to consider.
As it stands now, police are trained to use their firearm as a last resort.
Most police are also trained to aim for center mass, meaning the chest area where vital organs
like the heart and lungs are located.
According to Police Psychologist Dr. Bill Lewinski, officers used to be trained to “shoot
and then assess”.
Meaning an officer would let off a round or two and then re-assess the threat before firing
again.
Nowadays, most officers are trained to fire and assess at the same time, which can result
in more shots being fired.
Critics of these tactics say that police are effectively “shooting to kill” rather
than “shooting to wound”.
They want officers to aim for arms and legs instead of torsos.
An idea most police are adamantly against.
They argue that shooting someone in the arm or leg may not stop the threat fast enough,
and police may not have the time, composure or ability to aim with that level of precision.
Thus, aiming for anything other than center mass increases the chances of stray bullets
hitting bystanders.
Which brings us to the ethical side of the question.
Is there any instance in which murder should be allowed by the police or any other law
enforcement agency?
Does the perceived threat of a lone citizen warrant a system in which another class of
citizens, like police officers, are given the freedom to murder?
In other countries police don’t even carry firearms - why do they carry them in the US?
At what point does the risk to human life make it OK for police to kill?
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