Joe,

If you think that having the authority to shoot fleeing suspects is the reason that we had a low crime rate (do you know how low the crime rate was then?) in the 50's and 60's you are, as they say, laboring under a snare and a delusion. In the last few years the US crime rate has dropped to its lowest in a number of decades despite the fact that the police do not shoot fleeing suspects. I will grant you that if the police could shoot fleeing suspects we would not have as many 'Police Wildest Videos', but, then again, do we really need those tv shows?

That man in NOLA did not need to be shot anymore than I need to fly to the moon. A stun gun, a concussion grenade, hell, even a lasso would have worked. The trouble is that when police deploy as they did only a violent end will reduce their testosterone level and say to the citizens on their city, "Don't mess with us." I say the above because I have a brother that was a cop and have seen how he and others operate.