I'm glad to have had the input of the INGO members who are also LEO on this and other troublesome topics (the recent hotel thread comes to mind). I appreciate you taking the time to express your point of view and potentially shift our frame of reference. Your posts add a great deal to the level of discourse. I further appreciate that, for the most part, INGO is a place where I can read civil discourse on such hair-raising topics without feeling like I'm either a stranger in a strange land or one of fifty in an endless echo chamber.
I have a question that I hope can be viewed as legitimate and not flamed. I honestly do not mean this as disrespectful in any way, shape, or form to our police represented here or in general. Here goes:
IANAL! It is my understanding that it is an established and tried tenet of our freedoms that you may resist an unlawful arrest even up to the use of deadly force. (Plummer v State, 136 Ind 306 & John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529) With this as an axiom... to me, it follows that my 4th amendment freedoms protecting illegal search and seizure and my right to resist false arrest may be seen as more important than that officer's life. I realize that this is a GROSS simplification. I appreciate what the officers have said in this thread about reaction time and deadly consequences. I can't imagine what kind of stresses and threats you have to deal with every day.
However, my question.. isn't an innocent man's freedom (life, in this case) worth the hesitation? If this man had resisted, would he not be right in doing so?
I haven't volunteered to put my life on the line by wearing blue (though I did wearing green). Call me a keyboard warrior all you want, or an armchair quarterback. It is my opinion as a law-abiding free man that there should never be a circumstance where my life even has the potential to be taken by one sworn to protect and serve unless I have a gun pointed at that officer or someone else. I AM IN NO WAY ADVOCATING THE KILLING OF A POLICE OFFICER. I truly hope that, should I ever be in such a situation, I am able to clear up the misunderstanding peacefully and without incident. But, as others have said, if I'm opening the door at night in my underwear my gun is likely in my hand or close by. At that point, I have committed no crime and deserve as much consideration and due process as one who answered in tophat and evening coat with a congenial smile.
All that being said, the prankster deserves all that's coming to him and more.
I have a question that I hope can be viewed as legitimate and not flamed. I honestly do not mean this as disrespectful in any way, shape, or form to our police represented here or in general. Here goes:
IANAL! It is my understanding that it is an established and tried tenet of our freedoms that you may resist an unlawful arrest even up to the use of deadly force. (Plummer v State, 136 Ind 306 & John Bad Elk v. U.S., 177 U.S. 529) With this as an axiom... to me, it follows that my 4th amendment freedoms protecting illegal search and seizure and my right to resist false arrest may be seen as more important than that officer's life. I realize that this is a GROSS simplification. I appreciate what the officers have said in this thread about reaction time and deadly consequences. I can't imagine what kind of stresses and threats you have to deal with every day.
However, my question.. isn't an innocent man's freedom (life, in this case) worth the hesitation? If this man had resisted, would he not be right in doing so?
I haven't volunteered to put my life on the line by wearing blue (though I did wearing green). Call me a keyboard warrior all you want, or an armchair quarterback. It is my opinion as a law-abiding free man that there should never be a circumstance where my life even has the potential to be taken by one sworn to protect and serve unless I have a gun pointed at that officer or someone else. I AM IN NO WAY ADVOCATING THE KILLING OF A POLICE OFFICER. I truly hope that, should I ever be in such a situation, I am able to clear up the misunderstanding peacefully and without incident. But, as others have said, if I'm opening the door at night in my underwear my gun is likely in my hand or close by. At that point, I have committed no crime and deserve as much consideration and due process as one who answered in tophat and evening coat with a congenial smile.
All that being said, the prankster deserves all that's coming to him and more.