Responding to a 12:30 a.m. silent alarm of a portable classroom break-in at a Pasadena middle school, a school district police officer observed a subject wearing a hoodie and carrying a backpack as he was leaving the portable structure. The subject ignored the cop’s order to stop and placed his hands on his chest. The officer believed he was holding a gun and opened fire. The burglar was shot in the chest and airlifted to a trauma center in critical but stable condition. His backpack was full of stolen electronics. No gun was found.
As it turns out, the burglar was a 14-year-old 8th grader. You can bet there will be a lot of excoriating blasts against this ‘thoughtless, heartless, shoot first and ask questions afterwards’ cop for shooting some poor little kid. His family will probably sue the school district and the officer. And based on past experiences in such cases, the district will end up settling the case out of court.
Was this a righteous shooting? In my opinion, it certainly was! The burglary occurred at half-past-midnight, not in broad daylight. The officer had no way of telling whether the burglar was a young kid or an adult. The officer thought the burglar was holding a gun and believed his own life was in imminent danger. Even if the cop had known that it was a young kid, the belief he was holding a gun justified the shooting.
Despite a Supreme Court decision barring cops from shooting fleeing suspects who do not pose an imminent threat to life-and-limb, I believe the officer not only had a right, but also a duty, to stop a burglar in the middle of the night from escaping with his ill-begotten loot, even if the officer believed the crook to be unarmed.
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