pete75 wrote: ↑29 Sep 2022, 11:34am
pwa wrote: ↑29 Sep 2022, 5:05am
pete75 wrote: ↑29 Sep 2022, 12:31am
Acting out of fear when in "action". If a soldier acts out of fear isn't that called cowardice in the face of the enemy and attracts severe punishment....
I make some allowance for the fact she was an inexperienced recruit at the time. And fear for one's own life is deeply ingrained in most of us. If consumed by that fear, you could very well want to make sure that the cause of that fear was not going to get up again.
Some years ago whne I was a student in Leeds I was attacked by a mugger. I dropped him with a couple of punches but didn't then go on the kick him in the head a few times while he was on the ground to stop him getting up again. If he had tried to get up that's when I'd have hit him again. So no I don't make any allowance for what you describe.
Even after all these years I still have a faint white scar on the edge of my palm where he cuaght me with his knife. Was going for his wrist but was a bit too slow.
Reasonable force applies to all of us, police as well. What is reasonable is very incident and person specific. It's what YOU honestly believe is required to defend yourself and or others in those circumstances. With however a reverse burden of proof
The issue arising that people once in fight mode have difficulty stopping, kicking punching hitting with an object etal and a bit of allowance is made for that if it's all part of one course of action, what you cant do is hand out punishment for their cheek in trying to mug you, after any threat of such has gone.
The question then for us and the jury, is did she honestly believe that prone tasered man was both an ongoing threat and that hitting him was the only reasonable course of action.or was it revenge \ punishment\adrenaline rush.
My view
There are less violent ways of being fairly sure someone on the floor will have great difficulty getting up, if those fail you can indeed resort to plan b and hit him