Police execute man with explosives without trial

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I don't post on 'in the news' much, but I can't believe nobody's talking about what happened today. Obviously people are talking about the really important aspects of the incident in the US, which is that 5 police officers were murdered and that there is deep unrest about the police's institutional racism and disproportionate killing of unarmed black men. But nobody is talking about the fact that the police sent in a remote controlled bomb and executed the shooter without trial. How is this possible?

If they could get a remote control robot in there, could they not have got it to release tier gas or something to disarm him and remove the threat without actually killing him? I don't understand how they could legally do this. To be clear, I absolutely do understand WHY they did it - it seems a 'least damage' option as no more police get put at risk, I just don't understand how it's legal?

I'm very firmly against the death penalty and very much in favour of the principle of fair trial, but I really don't have a problem with this. It seems to me that it comes fairly and squarely within the principle of using reasonable force to save lives. We don't have a problem with the numerous cases where lone gunmen end up getting shot by police and I don't think this is realistically any different. It wasn't a situation where they could conceivably have decided that he was safe, given that his avowed intention was to kill policemen and he wasn't bothered about his own survival.

If it had happened here I'd be appalled. We don't have the death penalty. Texas, however, does have the death penalty and the police there seem to shoot people dead just for looking at them funny. So I can't get worked up about it, though I am surprised the news didn't make more of it.

The reason I think it makes people uneasy is this: the next step from 'send a remote controlled device in' is 'send an autonomous device in.
Currently things like drones still have a human controlling them, albeit at great remove. But there are machines being developed that will have the ability to target and fire independent of human influence. South Korea already has machine gun posts along the nk border that are capable of targeting independently.
The reason the Texas case is uncomfortable is the extra degree of remove between targeted and targeter.

Oh, good point, Formal. Yes, that is a worry and not something I'd considered.

The guy was heavily armed and had shown he was out to kill as many police as possible. If i was the police commander and the choices I had was to use the robot bomb or risk him continuing to shoot and kill the people under my command, I would have done the same too.

It's understandable to want the police to use less lethal force but when the bullets are flying, it's not so easy. If the robot released tear gas as suggested, he'd have been able to run off. And then what? Either the police shoot him at that point.....or they chase him again with the tear bombing robot? It's simply not feasible.

At the end of the day he must have known that shooting cops dead would mean he would almost certainly be killed in response.

The lorry driver in nice was also shot dead 'without trial'. Do you have a problem with that too?

I have no problem at all with this particular guy being dead.
I think the weirdness stems from the increasing remotes of the person pulling the trigger and the moral implications. Drones flown from another continent for example. It's all a bit video games like. Do we then lose sight of the fact that there are humans in the cross hairs?

In this case I think police acted correctly- but the technology itself raises uncomfortable questions

Well let me see, I think they should have tried for a period longer than a lunch break anyway. Perhaps they should have got in a professional negotiator. They are police. Not assassins. Arguably, as victims of the assault they were in fact very poorly placed to deal with him at all.

Plus, the constant loss of information that this trigger happy attitude creates IS an issue. What if the Orlando man HAD planted bombs elsewhere in the city? What if there WAS a terrorist cell behind him? Plus we will never really know what motivated him. It's all speculative. Therefore we remain as ignorant as ever as to how we might prevent it in future.

Given the apparent escalation of this shit, that is a serious opportunity lost.

Nice was clearly different. The man was a actively killing people Though I would love to see some of these people put through the mundanity of facing a trial and going to jail instead of attaining their aim of martyrdom.

Sorry DALLAS not Orlando, v depressing that there is so much of this horror I am getting confused

Perhaps they should have got in a professional negotiator

They did. They used a police officer who is a professional hostage negotiator. For this kind of situation the professional negotiators are, on the whole, police officers who have been specially trained and have relevant experience.

As for your concern about how long the negotiations took, I am involved in negotiations professionally (not life or death matters, thankfully). Sometimes it is obvious after a few minutes that no deal is going to be possible. It usually takes a bit longer than that but I certainly don't see anything unreasonable in concluding that negotiations have broken down after 2 hours. It may be that the police got this wrong but I certainly wouldn't expect them to continue negotiations to try and meet some artificial minimum length of time in a situation where it is clear that negotiations have failed and where delay could lead to further casualties.