Bird
Epic Contributor
Deerlope said:Regardless of what my opinion is the facts remain that a family has been torn apart and a young trooper has to live with this the rest of his life. Its a hard thing to put behind you, having taken someone's life to save you own. That officer will have stress problems the rest of his life. May God look after both of them.
You're most likely right. You know a large percentage of the officers who shoot someone resign not long after that. And personality changes are common. I never had any doubt about my ability to shoot if I had to, but thankfully, never had to find out for sure. However, one of my top young field training officers had to shoot and kill a man one night. Plenty of witnesses, including the dead man's wife, who all agreed that the officer had no choice; it was his life or the other man's. That young officer stayed on the department, even was, a few years later, promoted to the rank of sergeant and worked for me as a sergeant. He was still a top notch officer, but got a divorce, and while he had always been a cheerful sort of guy, I don't recall ever seeing him even smile after that shooting. There was no logical reason for him to ever regret what he'd done, but it obviously wasn't easy to live with.
And when I was a recruit in the academy, the head of the academy was as rough and tough an old cop as you'll ever meet. But he had shot a young man a few years earlier. It was justifiable and he was correct in what he'd done. But he told us he'd awakened many a night with that fellow sitting on the foot of the bed; i.e., nightmares years later.
We'd all like to think we're brave and tough . . . well, maybe brave, but sometimes not as tough as we'd like to be.