ENGLISH ESSAY

THE RIGHT TO KILL OR NOT?

NAME

Institution

Police officers are people like any other person. Police officers risk their lives to protect the lives of others in the communities. They serve the public at any and all costs. When the police serve, they live in the communities they serve. Being a police officer does not change the genes of a person. The service for the public is not comfortable at all, and police officers face various challenges in their line of services. Most of the times, they are faced with many dilemmas. During these situations, a police officer is expected to take into account various factors which include the legal factors, the environmental factors and also the moral or ethical factors. Most of these dilemmas are very hard to decide on the spur of the moment, and they mostly require quick decision making. In the case of killing and not killing, it is a dilemma that most policemen are faced with almost every day. what is the thesis exactly? Be clear.

Police officers are mandated to protect citizens, and in doing so, they are not supposed to harm the public. The police officers should not be given the right to kill. This is because the decision made by a police officer in these situations are mostly under pressure, and sometimes they can be misinformed, and that can result in a fatal loss. An officer can apply extra force on a civilian who is entirely innocent. This will mean that the police officer has taken the life of the person he is supposed to be protecting (Balko, 2013). Citizens trust in government and law enforcement to offer protection to them and not to harm them. Every person has the right to live, and there is no person including the officers who have the right to take the life of another person away. Police officers are, therefore, not allowed to take any human life. If the right to kill were given to police officers, most of them would probably abuse the right, and they may even use that right in an illegal manner. Even when a person has committed criminal activities, the person is entitled to a fair and proper trial which will involve the justice system to ensure that the individual is judged accordingly. When the police apply killing to their line of work, they then

deny people the right to a fair trial. The work of a police officer is to ensure that criminals are taken into court not to judge them. When a police officer kills a person, it means that the officer has made a judgment and has decided to declare the judgement to be death. This is inappropriate, and it should not be acceptable. It is also against many religious beliefs for a person to take the life of another person. Police officers, therefore, have no right to kill people. Comment by admin: how do you support these ideas?

On the other hand, there are situations where people feel that officers have the right to kill. Police officers are given the go ahead to use lethal force when the criminals in question are armed, and they have refused to surrender (May, 2015). An officer is therefore allowed to stop the criminals by using any means possible. This is to ensure that the criminal does not escape and go on to harm other innocent people. The police can also be justified to kill when the criminals try to harm the police officers. This is mostly referred as personal defense and it is only allowed when the officer has no other option. A police officer can kill a person who is harming the public, and there is no other way to stop the person. In some cases, some criminals can take people as hostages, and they can start killing them randomly which is unacceptable, and the police are allowed to use any force to protect the public. The police officers are required to carry out their duties no matter the circumstances. The decisions made by police officers are under scrutiny and now affected by lawsuits. No person is above the law, and the police officers are not an exemption, and they should, therefore, act and react to the law. When pursuing criminals, officers are expected to try as much as possible to arrest the criminals and take them to jail alive. Considering all these sides, the right to kill or not is, therefore, a matter of circumstance and moral authority. The right to kill is reserved for very peculiar and odd moments. These moments are not clearly defined to ensure that there is no misunderstandings. Since human lives are vital, they should be handled with a lot of care and respect.

References

Balko, R. (2013). Rise of the warrior cop : the militarization of America's police forces. New York: PublicAffairs.

May, L. (2015). Contingent pacifism: revisiting just war theory. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.

Remember in APA the References page uses hanging indents. Highlight each entry and then go to "paragraph' menu, click on 'indentations' then "special' and then 'hanging'. You have a lot of fact/opinion...I would like to see some additional support from your sources. Be sure to add in some transition words/phrases to help the paper flow nicely. Good luck to you.