No, The San Bernadino Police Did NOT "Act Stupidly" Or "Murder" Django Dorner

"Anybody with half a brain would know that CS gas canisters caused the fire at Waco, and, now, the fire that burned Dorner alive."

- J_Crater, 13 February 2013

Wow! An online forensic pathologist. So, can you share your findings and the autopsy report you prepared?

"This story doesn’t just have Dorner as the “bad guy.” There are plenty of “bad guys” to this story."

- J_Crater, February 13 2013 

The San Bernadino police acted within the law.

As an aside on the use of deadly force and law enforcement, in Tennessee v Garner, 471 US 1 (1985), the Supreme Court held that law enforcement is only permitted the use of such force against dangerous suspects, who are in flight, when killing the suspect is “necessary to prevent the escape and the officer has probable cause to believe that the suspect poses a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer or others.”

In Fourth Amendment cases, the Supreme Court has stressed that “the use of deadly force to prevent the escape of all felony suspects, whatever the circumstances, is constitutionally unreasonable. It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape. Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so. It is no doubt unfortunate when a suspect who is in sight escapes, but the fact that the police arrive a little late or are a little slower afoot does not always justify killing the suspect. A police officer may not seize an unarmed, nondangerous suspect by shooting him dead.”

Deadly force was held not justified where a suspect’s vehicle was “moving slowly and in a non-aggressive manner, could not have hit any of the officers, and was stationary at the time of the shooting.” Kirby v Duva, 530 F.3d 475, 482 (6th Cir. 2008). Also, in Smith v Cupp, 430 F.3d 766, 774-75 (6th Cir. 2005), the Court held that suspect who had taken control of officer’s patrol car, although he was in possession of a dangerous weapon, “was not threatening the lives of those around him.”

Given the fact that Dorner a) had killed an officer at the final shootout site, b) sent another officer to ICU where he is in critical condition, and c) continued to shoot from the cabin, lethal force could be used because:

1. It was “necessary to prevent the escape;”

AND

2. Officers had “probable cause to believe that the suspect posed a significant threat of death or serious physical injury to the officers or others.” 

While I would prefer that LE not use lethal force because I don’t support state-sponsored killings, I have no problem with using it if the alternative is the deaths of more innocent people. LE would have been completely within the law to take him down.