I’m from NY. What’s wrong with that?
Besides gun happy cops, that is. We here in the Big City have been talking a lot about police on trial. One of the points brought out frequently is that no policeman has ever been convicted of murder for actions taken while on duty. Is this right? Maybe only in New York?
Does anyone out there know of a police convicted of murdering someone while doing his duty?
I suspect what you have here is a matter of definitions. If you’re doing your duty, you don’t murder innocent people, so as you phrased it last, no.
As you phrased it earlier, “murdered someone while on duty”–that’s different. It’s very hard to convict a police officer of murder, they have an almost virtually automatic fallback position that makes it an argument of “negligent homicide” verses “justifiable use of force”.
Jim Petty
An oak tree is just a nut that stood it’s ground
I’ve heard of police accused of manslaughter. The only other option I can picture is self-defense. Maybe it’s assumed the cop’s actions are not with malice. Then again, you never know if a “hit” might not actually be a personal vendetta, and the cops just protect their own by saying it was in the line of duty.
I don’t know if you are asking specifically for NY but here in Manitoba there have been two high profile (one currently underway) of cops using undue force and someone died.