DISCRETION 1

POLICE DISCRETION

TANESHA BRENNO

1-3-10

COREY BRUNELLE
DISCRETION 2

Police discretion to me is basically the ability to decide and think about what to do

rationally and responsibly. I feel that the discretion in the scenario was a little harder to

determine than most in the reading.

On one hand, the officer should have called in back-up as soon as she started to pursue on

foot, this way she would have prevented the assaults that she had to endure. Another thing she

should have practiced was making sure the suspect was far enough away so he could not have

hurt her before she had time to stop him. This suspect could have easily had an illness like bi-

polar or schizophrenia or he could have been on a very dose of medications and was unable to

determine whether or not what he was doing was right or wrong. The suspect was laying in the

middle of the road next to his bike with his hands and feet in the air, not your typical place for a

bike thief to be, or he could even have had a seizure and been a little bit embarrassed about the

situation.

On the other hand the suspect should have stopped once she called to him, when you do

not answer a law enforcement they always think the worse and people should know that

instinctively. When the officer was trying to apprehend the suspect, he would not cooperate and

put his hands on her, which may have made her believe she was in fear for her life. This brings

me back to my other point about her calling in back-up and staying a far enough distance away

from the suspect. The officer may have thought after everything shooting the suspect was the

only way to apprehend him so he could not be a threat to society. An officer would be

authorized to shoot if the suspect is within shooting range and not near anyone who could

accidently be in the line of fire, and if the officer believes that the suspect would be a threat to

any other officers or the community. According to “Deadly Force in Defense of Life”, use of

deadly force by law enforcement officers in the United States is limited to circumstances where
DISCRETION 3

such force is reasonably believed to be necessary to protect life--whether to counter immediate

threats of serious physical injury or to prevent the flight of a dangerous person whose escape

would presumably pose continuing threats to the safety of the community.

I feel that in order for law enforcement officers to practice correct and appropriate

discretion they would need to take classes and listen to people talk about it and what to do in

certain instances where it would be hard to control themselves or hard to determine whether or

not to use force. Another good thing would be to have officers patrolled by supervisors in order

to make sure that proper discretion is being used.

DISCRETION 4

REFRENCES

“ An Introduction to Policing” (2005) pp120 Wadsworth, Thomson Learning.