His back may be to the officer (a trooper in this case) but his front is toward the general population which he is a direct threat to.
Yeah, a convicted murderer with nothing to lose getting away from law enforcement and into the wild isnt a threat…Jesus.
I don’t know all of the story, but do you know for certain that all three shots were fired by the same person?
Along the same line of thought - do you know that the man ceased his efforts to flee after being shot only once, or that, once again only one officer fired?
In the case of Graham v. Connor the SCOTUS held that such actions are to be judged from the locus of the officer at the scene, not from the perspective of 20/20 hindsight. Additionally they held that an officer’s actions need to be objectively reasonable for an officer in the same or similar circumstances.
Another consideration with the three shots to the head. How many rounds were actually fired? We know three hit, but I haven’t heard if the agent fired only three, or 13. Under stress it can be hard to know how many rounds you sent down range, he might have thought he only fired once. Also, how do we know that the first two to the brain pan were lethal. How do we know that the angle was shitty and didn’t deflect off, or if they were graze wounds, or whatever. People get shot in the head and have lived, hell the one shoot out in, was it Il? where the officer shot the guy shooting back at him multiple times in the head with a .45 and the rounds failed to put the asshole down?
Point being we don’t know all the facts. Wait until reports come out and then call judgement. Otherwise we are no better than the assholes looking to riot in the streets.
What’s amazing is how many times these convicted murderers didn’t get shot BEFORE they decided to break out! :rolleyes:
If you were facing down an armed convicted murderer, would you stop at three rounds? 
Anyone know the distance at which he was shot? The story said “service weapon”…was that rifle or pistol? Caliber?
Shoot until the threat is gone. If it stopped at three, then so be it. If I had to fill his ass with enough lead that you could use his pecker as a pencil then so be. I don’t care one way or the other.
To be honest I’m a bit bummed a NY resident with a non safe act registered AR wasn’t the one that could have shot him. Just to see Cuomo squirm.
Hed be in the paddy wagon along with him
Thanks, you saved me some typing.
Eurodriver you are right about that so is the OP. I am not sure it would have mattered in this case but it has in many others recently.
I had the same thought. I think the first man shot was taken down by a tactical team. I was thinking three individual head shots from long guns with optics.
I have been assuming it was his handgun. The reports I’ve heard say the escapee was running. The Trooper may have been shooting on the move too.
That would have been sweet. I think the locals were probably laying pretty low. There were 1,000 to 1,100 law enforcement officers searching for these two guys for the past three weeks.
I dropped a tool off at a buddies house yesterday on the way to drop my kids off at day camp. He has a 12 GA shotgun, .22LR rifle and pistol in his unlocked garage. The pistol sits on a shelf and the long guns lean up against the end of his work bench. That kind of firearm storage has always frustrated me. I called him this morning and told him I was tempted to completely strip down his Mossberg 590A1 and leave it on his work bench.
Another thing about the 3 head shots. If the guy was proned out behind a tree and all you saw was his head, shoulders, and gun that’s probably what he is going to still look like after he is dead. He isnt going to fall down if he is already on the ground. Hell the first round could kill him instantly but you might not realize that for a bit. I saw it in Iraq. Guys would shoot dudes in the prone and it was really hard to tell if they were dead. So they probably got shot a bit more than needed.
Hard to tell what transpired from the photos I found.