Oh make no mistake, we remember that mistakes and errors do happen and that nobody is perfect. However the vast majority of us also know that those mistakes and errors carry consequences depending on how big said mistake and error is.
When said single mistake ends another persons life and is completely negligent, yeah thats kinda the way it works.
Do you say the same thing about drunk drivers who accidentally kill someone?
And why the hell shouldn't they? I couldn't think of a better example of a wrongful death by a police officer that wasn't actually murder or some premeditated act. Why exactly do you think the family should pay for the negligent mistake of a police officer employed by the state?
I'm going to try to draw a line of distinction, to see where you really fall. What you say is in moderation and makes sense. The guy should lose his job. The guy should be charged with manslaughter. But what you're responding to is my response to StateofMind's nonsense. He's taking the standpoint that this was murder. It wasn't: it wasn't premeditated, it was accidental. There's a whole heap of difference between the two. He's arguing the extremist point of view, but judging from you post I don't think you are. In my opinion, it's ok to be angry. It's not OK to pull the nuclear option when it isn't warranted.
I'll reiterate, again, that police are taught that if you shoot your gun you don't stop shooting. So waving around the number of shots fired is really just rhetoric to try to inflame people.
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I'm going to go on a tangent for a moment. Look at this article:
http://www.kansascity.com/2013/09/16/4486160/police-cop-shot-unarmed-man-in.html
It's factually correct. But it's written intentionally to inflame. The very first sentence states the man was unarmed and in a car accident. Factually correct. Even correct based on the timeline of what occurred. But by presenting that portion of the event first, it puts the reader in the position of immediately knowing the man was not a threat. So when you reach the second part of the sentence and find he was shot, your first response is anger.
If it were worded in an effort to allow the reader to understand how the events actually unfolded then the reactions would be a lot more neutral, unless of course you already have some bias one way or the other. It also doesn't make good reading if it's written like this:
"Policemen answering a call of an attempted house invasion were approached by a man fitting the invaders description. After attempting to tase the man with no effect, he was shot at close range by another officer."
Now you can go about explaining all the extenuating circumstances and post the pictures of him when he's 12 years old all dressed up, or in his nice football getup. It's amazing how different a person looks in a nice posed picture versus in the dark, in the middle of the night, in a situation where police were on the scene expecting a house invader.
It's unfortunate that so many reporters and editors choose this method of maintaining or generating reader interest. Anger is always the best way to get people to comment, so they exploit it. As a result these cases are tried in the court of public opinion in whatever manner the media wishes.
I wish people would think very, very hard about their reactions to this event. Is it right to be angry? Or is it right to be sad for the tragedy, and resovled to see that the justice system follows through on trying the policeman?
</tangent>
