Hypothetical time:
Say a lone gunman walks into a local Wal-Mart at 0100 on Black Friday when the store is at the most packed it is likely to be that year. Say he walks up to one of the floor managers and empties a magazine into the man’s chest, for whatever reason. Say two on-the-ball private citizens who happened to be lawfully carrying sidearms at this Wal-Mart made the hard decision and stopped the threat posed by the gunman before he had the opportunity to shoot anyone else. Say, in the process of doing so, one concealed carrier discharges nine rounds and the other seven. Say nine of those shots hit the gunman, killing him, while three more shots hit bystanders and six other people were wounded by fragments from the bullets or the things they were hitting (this sums to more than 16 rounds due to overpenetrating bullets).
Can you imagine the hell those concealed carriers would be in afterwards? They would be facing countless charges apiece, ranging from "reckless endangerment" all the way up to various flavors of murder or manslaughter depending on the mood of the prosecutor and would probably go directly to jail, do not pass go, immediately after the cops arrived and controlled the situation. To pile on top of that, the anti-rights cultists would be dancing in the blood of the wounded victims, proclaiming this to be "proof" that no one should be trusted with carrying a firearm around in public, and they would be tallying up those casualties as further "gun violence" "victims" to exploit in the future.
With that hypothetical situation fresh in your mind, what do you think will happen to the two NYPD officers who shot down the Empire State Building shooter, and who wounded nine other people in the process? Specifically, how do you think their consequences will differ from an average citizen in similar circumstances?
Like others, I am not going to come out swinging for or against the NYPD, but I am going to say that if the police officers do not face similar consequences that a private citizen would if he or she had just done the same exact thing (and you and I both know they will not), there is something very broken in the system.
But you already knew that.
It actually would depend on the state, in a state with a proper castle doctrine that includes civil immunity, that immunity should cover the person using legal self defense even if one or more of his rounds hits a bystander.
FL law is an example:
“776.032 Immunity from criminal prosecution and civil action for justifiable use of force.—
(1) A person who uses force as permitted in s. 776.012, s. 776.013, or s. 776.031 is justified in using such force and is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless the person against whom force was used is a law enforcement officer, as defined in s. 943.10(14), who was acting in the performance of his or her official duties and the officer identified himself or herself in accordance with any applicable law or the person using force knew or reasonably should have known that the person was a law enforcement officer. As used in this subsection, the term “criminal prosecution” includes arresting, detaining in custody, and charging or prosecuting the defendant.
(2) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force as described in subsection (1), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force that was used was unlawful.
(3) The court shall award reasonable attorney’s fees, court costs, compensation for loss of income, and all expenses incurred by the defendant in defense of any civil action brought by a plaintiff if the court finds that the defendant is immune from prosecution as provided in subsection (1).”
That SHOULD cover the person using self defense regardless of who his rounds hit so long as he is justified in using lethal force on the attacker. NC law has almost identical wording, as do other states. PA law appears to only provide civil immunity from legal actions by the perp though.
See, I would read that as only applying to force against those people against whom force is permitted by the cited statutes, rather than force against anyone in the immediate area, but, then, I am not a lawyer so I have no idea.
Anyone with the right education have a vote?
See here for comments from a former cop:
http://thewarriorclass.blogspot.com/2012/09/hysterical-incompetence.html
Like you said, you already know the most likely outcome.
Cop? Check.
New York? Double check.
They will get off scott free, though maybe with a department transfer to help shove the story down the memory hole.
The system has been broken for a long time. We’re just waking up to exactly how broken it is. None of us wanted to believe that things could ever get as bad as they have become, more or less to believe that even worse times likely lie ahead of us.
As Jerry Pournelle is fond of saying, “We have sown the wind–now to reap the whirlwind”.
@ Mossberg: Quite the comprehensive read, and a unique perspective at that… thanks for pointing us that direction!
@ the dude: Ayup. They might get some unpaid time off, and will probably get shuffled around, but will they face the same punishments as you or I would in similar circumstances? Of course not.
@ The Freeholder: Hell, that saying has biblical roots. And as I have been telling my wife/parents for a while now, I always thought it would be interesting to watch the collapse of a civilization, but I never meant “first-hand”.
Keep in mind, in some states the accomplices of the crime would actually get charged with the death of their buddy and bystanders in a self defense shooting.
As well they should be, but in a case like this, the defender(s) – if he is a civilian – escaping at least civil lawsuits would be amazing.