[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Comedian

Just because the justification for deadly force is no longer present does not exclude a person from being handcuffed, wounded or otherwise. If I, as the arresting officer, know that handcuffing the suspect will cause him/her further harm, then I might be persuaded to just watch them until the ambulance arrives and it becomes somebody else's problem. But as I said before, if not handcuffing the suspect somehow compromises my safety, they get cuffed. Any police officer will tell you same thing, it's not worth dying over something as stupid as not handcuffing a suspect, especially one stupid enough to provoke the use of deadly force. Obviously I can only speak for American police, but I can't imagine a law enforcement agency anywhere that would allow the safety of suspect who provoked deadly force to take precedence over the safety of one of their officers.

I can well imagine that most people would prefer to risk others in preference to themselves, yes.

On the other hand, police officers are paid to assume certain risks. Their very purpose is to protect the citizenry. In this, they have a similar task as firefighters. Obviously, firefighters would be safer if they simply contained flames and didn't try to go into them to pull out people, especially people dumb enough to be caught in a fire.

The thing is, public servants are not courts. They don't have any formal authority to decide when a citizen is so stupid that his life becomes worth less. Nor should they, in my opinion.

In an emergency situation, police officers may act with deadly force to protect themselves and others. This does not mean that they are free to decide that a little extra risk to others is preferable to a little extra risk to themselves.

Obviously, I'm aware how difficult it is to obtain adequate public servants. Most people will casually assume a risk on the part of others if it merely makes their jobs a little easier, let alone if it makes them substantially safer. None of that has any impact on the standards society can choose to impose nor the standards it should impose.