Poor buggers just can't get a break. Shooting a man who was clearly deranged and firing a shotgun randomly out of the windows of his house would, to the logical person, seem to be the right way to proceed. But apparently not, apparently police should have let his wife into the house to see if she could calm him down, or used non-lethal tactics. The problem these days is that 20/20 hindsight, hitherto seen as a way to avoid future mistakes, is now applied to past situations and legal cases are constructed around it. The problem is that 20/20 hindsight is great when you're sitting in a comfy chair, or even a court room, but you can't go back to a decision after analysing it for weeks and say "THIS is what you should have done" when the decision at the time had to be made in a matter of minutes.
Personally I want police to shoot someone who is firing a gun randomly into the street, it's what we pay our taxes for - to be protected. If there was a better way of doing things then that's great and bad luck Mr Saunders that police didn't follow that method, but since at the time the police captain believed it was the right way forward I'm inclined to support him. Mr Saunders took the option of shooting a shotgun into the street, and he brought the consequences on himself.
Of course in today's world EVERYONE is responsible for tragedies, especially if it's a government organisation. The only type of responsibility that appears to no longer be viable is PERSONAL responsibility, you know, the sort of responsibility that involves, say, not firing a shotgun into the street outside your home while screaming maniacally at passers-by. Sadly it appears the family of Mr Saunders have brought on board a pretty hardcore lawyer to fight their "case" and logic and reason go out of the window when you enter a courtroom. After all, the police can't say that they are 100% certain that there was no another course of action, they can only claim that with a crazy man firing indiscriminately out of a window and the danger to the innocent public growing by the second, taking him out seemed to be the best option. Ah but Constable Blah Blah, did you consider this option? or this? or this? Well no miss I didn't because there wasn't time, I haven't had the 3 weeks you've had to come up with these options. Ah-ha! So you admit there WERE other options? Well of course, there always are but...
It would interesting to speculate what would have happened if the police had decided not to shoot Mr Saunders. What if he had subsequently shot dead a passing civilian? Then the headlines would be screaming of police fallibility, and the parents of the dead civilian would be at this very moment be preparing legal action, probably using the same lawyer as Mr Saunders' parents...
