Police Officer

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scc11

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Hi All,
I will be graduating in Dec with my BA in Criminology. I have always had an interested in law enforcement and am interested in pursuing it as a career once I graduate. I am concerned though because there is always the risk of having to shoot and kill someone. One of the ten commandments is “Thall shall not kill” so technically I’d be breaking that commandment if I were to have to do this if the situation arose. I know that it is a rare situation in law enforcement but just wondering what your thoughts were…
 
Sometimes a policeman’s job will call him/her to protect the life of another/others that are in danger of losing that life/lives. This may call you stop a perpetrator from harming someone else, and on an occasion, it may mean having to use lethal force to sufficiently stop that person from killing someone else. The goal is to stop a victim from becoming a victim, and an unfortunate side-effect may be the loss of the life of the criminal. That is not murder.

Now, if you actually WANTED to kill a criminal and there was not actual NEED to do it, yet you do it anyway…that’s murder.
 
Exactly, true self-defense is NOT murder.

Something that came to my mind is the situations in the O.T. where God commanded the Israelites to go to war which included killing the enemy.
 
All police officers should wear the medal of St. Michael IMHO.
 
Protecting the civilians from criminals, including criminals who wish to hurt and murder others, is a noble profession. If you must use lethal force to stop innocent people from being hurt or killed, then it is justified.
 
scc11 said:
Hi All,
I will be graduating in Dec with my BA in Criminology. I have always had an interested in law enforcement and am interested in pursuing it as a career once I graduate. I am concerned though because there is always the risk of having to shoot and kill someone. One of the ten commandments is “Thall shall not kill” so technically I’d be breaking that commandment if I were to have to do this if the situation arose. I know that it is a rare situation in law enforcement but just wondering what your thoughts were…
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I think Go does not treat technicalities. You are not killing persons. I would call a suicide.If a known killers is surrounded by policeman and given the chance to come out alive ant be treated humanly and he starts shooting i consider it a suicide exactly as if he would throw himself into a live mine.

Put you a few Options. Would you shoot if you:

  1. *]had Hitler on shotgun sights?
    *]head a rapist who kidnapped a little girl on telecopic shotgun sights?
    *]has a 20 hostages taken inside a hotel and you had the kidnapper on you telespic shotgun sights?
    *]Gadhafi?
    *]The ruler of North Korea?

    I all cases I would press the trigger.
    If you do not kill one you are allowing that he kills 1 to 20 people.
    so, better 1 to 20 to live than one criminal do live.
 
scc11 said:
Hi All,
I will be graduating in Dec with my BA in Criminology. I have always had an interested in law enforcement and am interested in pursuing it as a career once I graduate. I am concerned though because there is always the risk of having to shoot and kill someone. One of the ten commandments is “Thall shall not kill” so technically I’d be breaking that commandment if I were to have to do this if the situation arose. I know that it is a rare situation in law enforcement but just wondering what your thoughts were…
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why would you consider a career in law enforcement if you were not willing to kill if necessary, observing all the precautions and standards you are being taught in such cases, to protect the lives of those you are paid to protect?

please show me in your reading of scripture and the Catechism of the Catholic Church where killing in self defense or to protect the lives of innocent people is forbidden. No you would not be breaking the commandment as long as you did not deliberately end the life of an innocent person and as long as you acted properly in the given situation. If you are not willing to protect me and my family, please find another city to work in.
 
I am not saying I wouldn’t be willing. In the case of someone holding another person hostage or pointing a gun at someone then yes of course. There are times in law enforcement though where a criminal may pull a weapon on you and you are forced to shoot even if they don’t shoot. I would be willing in all these cases I just want to make sure self defense is an exception to the rule.
 
I dont think you should become a policeman. And here is why. You are graduating college and you are still wondering the morality of being a protector of the innocent and of all. If you are still struggling with the problem then perhaps you are not schooled well enough in moral principles. policemen have patron saints, many holy men and women were policemen. (even the ones who had to make hard choices) It seems so cut and dried that I feel that maybe it isnt for you at this time.
Just my opinion and if we ever meet in real life please let me off with a warning!😉
You should also do some research on the te comandments and what the command thou shall not kill really means and says.
It is about murder. (Which you woudnt be doing technically or otherwise.)
 
My understanding has always been that in Hebrew, the commandment is actually Thou shalt not “commit murder,” not “kill” – a big difference. A soldier or law enforcement officer forced to shoot another to save their lives or the lives of others is not “committing murder,” which has a narrower legal definition.
 
As with all things, go first to your Catechism. Killing a person in the line of duty is not a violation of the Ten Commandments. Furthermore, if you take an oath to defend others, you have a duty to do so, even if it means you kill someone who is a threat. No one should be a police officer if they do not understand that this is an affirmative obligation.
 
All I know is that if you have any conflicts about shooting someone—resolve them **now. **Certainly before your next shift.

Do not wait. :eek:
 
scc11 said:
…I am concerned though because there is always the risk of having to shoot and kill someone. One of the ten commandments is “Thall shall not kill” so technically I’d be breaking that commandment if I were to have to do this…
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If there were a real moral problem with this, then there would be no Irish police officers.
 
In the Early Modern English that both the King James and Douay-Rheims translations were done in, “kill” meant “murder”—the term for simply causing death (rightly or wrongly) was “slay”. “Murder” at the time, meant “assassinate”—the two assassins Richard III hires in the Shakespeare play are called “murtherers”, for instance.
 
Arizona_Mike said:
The Hebrew word used is ratsach, which means to murder. When someone kills righteously elsewhere in the OT, a different word is usually used. See the following:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=43307
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Hastrman said:
In the Early Modern English that both the King James and Douay-Rheims translations were done in, “kill” meant “murder”—the term for simply causing death (rightly or wrongly) was “slay”. “Murder” at the time, meant “assassinate”—the two assassins Richard III hires in the Shakespeare play are called “murtherers”, for instance.
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Exactomundo.
DianaCC said:
If there were a real moral problem with this, then there would be no Irish police officers.
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:confused: Why would this be limited to “Irish police officers”?
 
Romans 13:3 - 5 is often interpreted to mean that the civil servants charged with maintaining peace - including magistrates, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers - operate as the temporal instruments of God’s justice in enforcing just laws for the protection of others and the punishment of evildoers.
 
Newbie2 said:
Why would this be limited to “Irish police officers”?
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The Irish police officer is a true stereotype from popular culture. The Irish are Catholic and can be assumed to hold Catholic moral values. Therefore there is nothing wrong with killing in the line of duty.
 
DianaCC said:
The Irish police officer is a true stereotype from popular culture. The Irish are Catholic and can be assumed to hold Catholic moral values. Therefore there is nothing wrong with killing in the line of duty.
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Yeah, uh, it’s only about as much a stereotype as the Gorkha soldier: some nations do certain jobs when they’re living among, or dominated by, other peoples.
 
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