Charles Whitman: Was his killing justifiable?

[Zorra]

Do you think the police could/should have captured him and brought him to trial, or were they justified in executing him?

Charles Whitman

Charles Joseph Whitman (June 24, 1941 – August 1, 1966) was a student at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Marine who killed 16 people and wounded 32 others during a shooting rampage on and around the university's campus on Aug. 1, 1966.

Whitman killed three of his victims inside the university's tower, and 10 others from the 28th floor observation deck<1><2> of the University's 307-foot (94 m) administrative building; one, Karen Griffith, died a week after the shooting from her wounds.
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Austin Police Department (APD) Officers Ramiro Martinez, Houston McCoy and Jerry Day, plus civilian Allen Crum, were the first to reach the tower's observation deck, stepping outside the south door at 1:24 p.m. Martinez, closely followed by McCoy, formed one team and proceeded north on the east deck. Day, followed by Crum, formed a second team and proceeded west on the south deck, with Whitman believed to be between the two teams. Several feet before reaching the southwest corner, Crum accidentally discharged a shot from his borrowed rifle. At the same time, Martinez jumped around the corner into the northeast area and rapidly fired all six rounds from his .38 police revolver at Whitman. As Martinez was firing, McCoy jumped to the right of him and fired two fatal shots of double-ought buck with his 12-gauge shotgun into the head, neck, and left side of Whitman, who was sitting with his back toward the north wall in the northwest corner area 50 feet away. Whitman, who appeared to be unaware of the presence of Martinez and McCoy, was partially shielded by the deck tower lights and in a position to defend assaults from either corner.

After firing six rounds, Martinez threw his empty revolver onto the deck and grabbed McCoy's shotgun, running to Whitman's prone body and firing point blank into his upper left arm. Martinez then threw the shotgun on the deck and hurriedly left the scene repeatedly shouting, "I got him."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman

From Business and Law:

Is Osama bin Laden killing legal? International Law experts divided

Dellinger also pointed out that it was a "highly dangerous mission" and the Navy SEALS met with "armed resistance" from other terrorists in the mansion, even if bin Laden was unarmed.

"It takes 20 minutes to make it to the third floor (where bin Laden lived). They don't know if the Pakistani military is going to be closing in, is going to impede their departure. Every second counts. And it would compromise the mission to do anything other than use lethal force against bin Laden and get him out as quickly as possible," he said.
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White House spokesman Jay Carney said the Navy SEALS "was prepared and had the means to take bin Laden into custody." However, bin Laden had not surrendered and had shown no indication that he was killing to surrender, Carney said.

Agrees Dworkin. "Under law enforcement standards, you can only use lethal force if it is strictly necessary to prevent the loss of other lives or to prevent the escape of someone you are seeking to arrest," Deutsche Welle quoted Dworkin as saying. He added that in this case it appeared the US was justifying the shooting by appealing to a mixture of these standards: "It was in the context of a fire fight, the US forces were meeting a lot of resistance, bin Laden was not giving himself up to the US forces even if he didn't have a weapon."

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/142448/20110507/osama-bin-laden-killing-legal-violate-international-law-experts-lawyers-divided.htm

Do you think the Navy Seals could/should have captured him and brought him to trial? Or were they justified in executing him?

Where do we draw the line in judging if police action in killing a dangerous mass murderer is moral?

[PCIntern]

1. Boy do I remember that ...

Even as a kid, I literally cried when the incident was recounted by police just after it happened. This miscreant shattered dozens and dozens of lives forever and everyone I knew, and I went to school with pacifists, was well-pleased that this creep was shot dead where he stood. I believe that was the same summer as Richard Speck and the 8 student nurses, but I'm not certain...bad time in America.

[ima_sinnic]

12. later they found he had a brain tumor and his behavior had become quite bizarre

-- so I don't really think of him as a "miscreant," though by the end, even before firing from the tower, he had murdered his mother and wife, both of whom he apparently loved very much, but wrote a self-reflection about it in which he mentioned not really understanding why he did it. Knowing he was going to die in the tower, he wrote a note in which he "willed any money from his estate to mental health research, saying that he hoped it would prevent others from following his route." The Wikipedia article goes into great detail about him, his background and the events of that day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Whitman

[Hutzpa]

2. Do you know what would have happen if Bin Laden had been captured

or kept alive? Hijackings, lots and lots of plane hijackings skyrocketing overnight.

[Zorra]

4. Possibly true. I am arguing neither for nor against here.

[Hannah Bell]

3. more from the Department of Misleading Comparisons.

[Zorra]

6. Why do you believe it is a misleading comparison? nt

[Zorra]

5. delete

[Hannah Bell]

7. um, because whitman was shot while in the middle of killing people?

[Zorra]

10. And OBL was shot while people in his compound were shooting at

Navy Seals that were attempting to capture him.

OBL was a smart guy, he trashed the WTC, and hid from US Intelligence for 10 yrs.

Do you think he might have suspected that someone was going to come for him someday, and had given orders about what to do in case of such an event?

Do you honestly believe that he would have wanted to be captured?

[Hannah Bell]

13. that story has already been debunked, try again.

whitman was in the middle of killing 16 people & wounding 32 when he was shot. unprovoked attack on innocent others at a university.

not in his house defending himself against people attacking him.

there's no analogy in the situations whatsoever. the attempt to draw one reeks of desperation.

[Zorra]

14. What story has been debunked? Can you post a link? nt

[virgogal]

8. Of course Whitman's killing was justifiable.

[GKirk]

9. I don't care if Osama was resisting or not

or if he was holding a gun or a bunny, I'm just happy they shot him.
(paraphrased from SNL)

[Mojeoux]

11. I read that he did have a weapon on the bed, under some covers.

How long would it take from OBL not raising his hands and diving for the hidden gun?

Here in Cali, the cops shoot guys dead dead dead for having screwdrivers, cell phones, and even broomsticks. Citizen's rights groups protest, but you NEVER hear a peep out of the wealthy homeowners.

OBL didn't have a broomstick or a celly or even a screwdriver, he had a GUN hidden under the covers.

How did the RW get so wussy all of a sudden?

[exboyfil]

15. Should we have forced Yamamoto's plane down

instead of shooting it down? OBL was an enemy combatant, and it was the Navy SEALs first objective to neutralize that combatant. You can say it would have been easy to bundle him up and carry him off, but how would the team necessarily know at the time. They might even have viewed it as a potential suicide mission. The first objective was neutralization which is what happened. The rest of it was gravy.

Thank you SEALS for doing a wonderful job and bringing justice at last to the victims of 9/11. People sitting in arm chairs questioning their actions should get a life. This was not like they broke into a compound in a country like the U.S. They were on foreign soil trying to take out an enemy who was being hosted by a hostile power.

[UTUSN]

16. (Answer to O.P : ) Yes, yep, yip. OBL, too in case this was a rhetorical quesition.

To the poster above who made a distinction between the perpetrator's killing happening in the moment and OBL's killing having happened BEFORE: NO distinction:: The killing happened NOW and happened PAST, HAPPENED.

[Zorra]

18. Not a rhetorical question. nt

[shoutinfreud]

17. Yes, it wasn't like it was an execution, he was mid-rampage.