Had to look that (Tennessee v. Garner) up. The ruling reasoning doesn't seem to make sense. It says that the killing of a fleeing suspect to prevent escape is an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment. So would chasing them down and capturing them also be an "unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment"? So are cops just supposed to let any suspect that flees to get away?
I was uncomfortable as well since it seemed to lead to a pythonesque situation where if you catch a guy plunging it in and out of a screaming girl, nobody can do anything about it until the guy is found guilty of rape in a court of law.
I guess if I ever come across a guy wrestling a cop for his gun, I'll let the matter settle itself out and one or the other is dead. No sense taking a chance on the turn of a legal phrase or a twisting of one word's meaning by a slick attorney before I intervene on the cop's behalf. I mean, after all, I'm the proverbial "reasonable man."
But I'm not a lawyer, and I wouldn't want to deprive the guy of his due process by running up and putting one in his left ear.
Let the "yeah, buts" with appropriate case law citations begin.
Terry, 230RN