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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site crystal.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!uwvax!crystal!pal
From: pal@crystal.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.politics
Subject: Re: NYC subway hero
Message-ID: <387@crystal.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 31-Dec-84 13:30:23 EST
Article-I.D.: crystal.387
Posted: Mon Dec 31 13:30:23 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Jan-85 06:08:07 EST
References: <121@cadre.UUCP>
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 24

> The manhunt is on!
> Some poor bastard had the gall to shoot four punks
> in NYC who attacked him with sharpened screwdrivers,
> demanding money.  Now the police artist's drawing
> of him is on nationwide television.  Public enemy number 

Difficult to comment without knowing details, but it seems to me that a person
with a gun should be able to dissuade someone with a screwdriver from robbing
him/her without killing four people, unless the four were real idiots and
persisted in their attack even after the gun was produced and perhaps even
after one or more them were shot.
If such disregard for their own life was indeed displayed, then of course the
man was justified in responding as he did, but I doubt if the police would be
after him if such were the case.  If not, sorry, he deserves to be considered a
criminal.
Of course you may feel that muggers deserve to die, but I don't think the law
agrees, at least not without due process.  Sorry, unless there is evidence that
the killer's response was reasonable in the circumstances, he *is* a criminal,
and a dangerous one.  Would you applaud a driver who deliberately rammed a car
that cut in front of his own, even though s/he could avoid it?
Taking the law into one's own hands is *not* commendable.

Anil Pal
U. of Wisconsin - Madison