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From: hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics
Subject: Re: Lethal force used by police
Message-ID: <1179@shark.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 5-Dec-84 02:17:47 EST
Article-I.D.: shark.1179
Posted: Wed Dec  5 02:17:47 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 6-Dec-84 07:41:34 EST
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Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
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Xref: watmath net.flame:7108 net.politics:6092



| > Where? In at least two of the towns I have lived in there have been
| > tragic deaths because policemen shot people who were harmless.  In
| > Dunedin, Florida a 14 year old boy was killed in a schoolyard--
| > policemen thought he might be robbing something and ordered him to
| > freeze. The boy panicked and ran-- the policeman shot and killed him.
| 
| I do not believe the police are authorized to use deadly force to stop
| a suspect from running away.  Sounds like these policemen weren't
| properly trained.
| Phil Ngai

Unfortunately the police ARE authorized to shoot you if you run away from
them.  The practice is defended under the heading of shooting at a fleeing
(suspected) felon.  If you run away then you are clearly guilty. :-(

All they have to do is warn you ONCE.

To put this in proper perspective, most police don't ever draw their
weapons except at the firing range.  I suspect there is some kind of
a neighborhood/district pattern to that raw statistic, where police in
certain beats use their guns a lot and the rest hardly ever have to.

This information comes from a series of articles in the Oregonian newspaper
about two years ago.  It was an unpleasant surprise to learn that the
fleeing-felon rules had been so broadly interpreted at a federal court
level.

They also claimed that the policy about police shooting fleeing suspects
is a very local thing, and what is permitted in one area might get the
officer fired in the next.

Hutch