The other night I was watching the movie *Collateral *and (minor spoiler alert) a character holds a gun on a cop because he has to go save someone’s life and time’s a wastin’. It is left implicit in the movie that he will end up being let off the hook for what would ordinarily be considered a pretty serious crime, since he did in fact have someone’s life to save, and he wouldn’t have been able to had he not taken that action.
This trope is of course a common one in movies and TV (Jack Bauer did it constantly), but I was wondering if this has ever really happened IRL. Logically and ethically it makes sense that to prevent the death of an innocent person, threatening a police officer with a gun (with no intent to actually pull the trigger) is the lesser harm. But would the justice system see it this way, or would they consider this a form of unacceptable vigilantism? Has the question ever been tested?
I remember watching the old (black and white) episodes of FBI on TV. What was remarkable was - the episodes were taken from real cases of the FBI files, then given the Hollywood treatment. You know, the bad guy’s girlfriend or accomplice with heart of gold who decides to got straight and help the FBI, that sort of crap. In typical Hollywood crap, that sort would be shot by the bad guy in the end so they don’t have to face the legal music. On FBI, they told you the final disposition of the case, and the turned-good character ends up getting 10 to 20 like everyone else.