Even the wildest, most theoretical situation comes around sooner or later - just not very often.dogflight wrote:The first half of the story (up to the jumper breaking free), happened a week or so ago in the DFW area. The only important "contortion" in the scenario was the mad dash for the other side of the bridge. The "you" in the scenario was also a police officer, and therefore had a gun, so the scenario's not such a "weak theoretical situation" after all.Excaliber wrote:When we have to contort ourselves this far to try to come up with a weak theoretical situation for application, the most likely conclusion is that what we're trying to do isn't a real good idea.dogflight wrote:Scenario:
A man is threatening to jump off a very high bridge into a rocky abyss. While you have his attention, a police officer is able to approach unobserved by the jumper, grab him, and yank him away from the edge. Unfortunately, in the struggle, the man breaks free and the officer is knocked to the ground. The jumper, now more intent than ever on dying, sprints toward the other side of the bridge. You're too distant to catch him and the officer will barely be off the ground before the jumper clears the edge - assuredly ending his life. In a split second, you realize that a) you have a pistol, b) you have a clear shot, and c) the scene is backed by nothing but a 40-foot dirt embankment. You draw, aim in the general vicinity of his knees, and fire.
Questions:
Regardless of the outcome, is your action legal under PC 9.34(b)?
(One detail does differ from the real life event: the bridge did not span a rocky abyss, but rather a freeway sporting dense, high-speed traffic. This was changed in order to keep the "Defense of a Third Person" angle out of the equation.)
None of which is to say that the use of a firearm in these circumstances would be a "real good idea". But whether we feel an action is good or bad often carries litle weight in criminal court. I think we can all agree that shooting the man would be an ugly and high-risk proposition. But please do not so casually disregard the fact that the man faces certian death in a jump, versus the (admitedly high-risk) possibility of surviving the bullet of a would-be rescuer.
So, the question remains; would PC 9.34(b) apply to the original scenario?
I did not "casually disregard" the fact that the man would have faced certain death if he had jumped into the traffic lanes below. In fact he would have created a risk of killing others by doing so as well.
I don't know how much actual experience you have with making judgments like this, but during my 21 years of large agency law enforcement I have been in the situation you described: physically wrestling with people desperately fighting to jump off a highway overpass into traffic. If those individuals had broken away and run at speed toward the bridge railing and I couldn't catch up, I most certainly would not have used my firearm to stop them, even though their jumps would have most certainly been fatal.
You'll notice that in the situation you cite the police officer did not use his firearm to try to stop the subject from jumping either. That may be because the theoretical 40 foot dirt mound backstop was missing, or it may be because he was trained as I described earlier and understood both the relevant laws and reasonable competing harms analysis.
Those of us who have regularly encountered situations where these judgments actually have to be made in a second or so don't make them "casually". They make them with an understanding of the law and the fact that most of us don't wear batman costumes and can't prevent every negative consequence of people's actions without doing more harm than good in some cases (including to one's self, career, and family).
High consequence decisions with a high probability of catastrophic consequences are usually made casually in armchair academic mode by those who have never faced either the actual circumstances or seen the aftermath in real life.
If you're determined to find an instance where shooting a suicidal person was actually done and know how that turned out in court, I'd suggest a dive into case law on the section you cite. The resources are readily available and, more than likely, someone has tried it and the action was ruled on in an actual case. Here's one news reportfor you, but it's not as "clean" as you might like because the subject was setting other people on fire during his suicide and the justification was more than likely ending a deadly threat to others rather than terminating a suicide attempt.
I'm not interested enough to look further because my decision is already made: I have never shot any suicidal people and won't be doing so in the future unless they pose an immediate deadly threat to myself or others as in the article above.
