To Protect and Serve

Let's pretend that an 18-year-old male, out of his mind from recent use of PCP, was walking in the traffic lanes on a major city street and a citizen called 9-1-1 to report this to the authorities. Let's pretend that the police show up, remove the male from traffic, and direct him to sit on the curb while they figure out what to do next. Let's pretend that the male becomes aggressively combative, attacking the two police officers who responded to the incident report. After using tasers on the male and being unable to subdue him, another officer arrives on-scene and becomes involved in trying to subdue the person.

Let's pretend that shots are fired, bullets that have no effect on stopping the male from his continued attacks on the officers, two of whom are on the ground and now unable to defend themselves. Let's pretend that 3 of the shots hit the male, 2 in the body and 1 in the head. An ambulance is called and the victim is rushed to the hospital in critical condition. The 2 injured officers are also transported to the hospital so their injuries can be accessed and attended.

Okay, there's the scenario. Your response would be:

1. if you are the parents, call an attorney before you rush to the hospital to see if your child is still alive.
2. if you are a passer-by, contact the media so you can be interviewed on camera as the authority on what happened, who was involved, and who is more at fault: the rogue police officers or the innocent young man who was shot 3 times.
3. if you are a near-by neighbor, pick up the attacker's cell phone and start making calls to all the contacts on the phone, hysterically telling them that the police just shot this guy.
4. if you are even remotely connected to the attacker (uncle, aunt, g'parent, ex girlfriend, classmate, cousin, friend, neighbor), write blog entries on the local on-line newspaper website testifying that this is a "good boy" who made an indiscretion by using drugs, but he doesn't deserve to be shot in the head by the vicious cops.
5. raise the hue and cry about police violence in response to unarmed citizens they detain for questioning.
6. suggest that the cops should be trained to wound the attacker, not shoot him in the head.
7. criticize the cops for not being able to subdue the attacker without resorting to deadly force and call it an "over-kill" response.
8. say that the cops deserved to be hurt because they are so out of shape that they couldn't even stop one unarmed attacker.

If you live in my neck of the woods, all of the above appear to be appropriate responses to the scenario!