Originally Posted by
Cliff Huckable
TrackPuppetMeatHead: You're getting things confused - I'm not defending the guy who killed the cop.
There are two issues, indeed two crimes, here:
1) The shooting of Cpl. Bruce McKay.
2) The shooting of Liko Kenney.
Either you believe in the rule of law, or you don't.
This passer-by is not a police officer. His son is not a police officer. Therefore they have no business picking up police officers' guns and shooting people.
Nevermind that their "assessment" of the situation is a civilian, or amateur, assessment - they should NOT be acting as police officers.
In that situation, their duty as citizens is to report what they've seen to the police - and that's it.
They took the law into their own hands, and killed a man. Whether that man is guilty of crime has nothing to do with it. Those passers-by are not qualified, and have not been given the power and authority by the state, to decide whether or not anyone should lose their life.
Over a couple hundred years the legal system has been developed and refined. It is as it is for good reason.
Allowing citizens to make spur of the moment judgments on some stranger's life is to operate as if there is no legal system at all.
Do you really want to live in a society where the rule of law is optional?
Do you think you're somehow exempt from being judged a similarly by some passer-by? And don't tell me you wouldn't break the law or be in such a situation - you don't actually have to be a threat, you only have to be a threat in the mind of the untrained passer-by.