A Duke University officer shot and killed a man at the Duke Hospital on Jan. 14. During a struggle, the man grabbed another police officer’s gun and fired shots in the emergency room. According to staff working in the hospital, the man was under medical evaluation after another altercation with Duke Police.
According to the WRAL article, hospital patrons Hannah Norcross and her 10-year-old son were shocked and traumatized by the killing. Norcross and her son were shaken knowing how close they were to the situation.
“I immediately thought active shooter,” Norcross said to WRAL. “He doesn’t want to go back to Duke because he is afraid he will be shot. His words — from a 10-year-old.”
This killing brings into light many important questions about both gun control and police brutality. On one hand, many believe the Duke University officer shouldn’t have resorted to killing the man when the situation arose, especially considering he was being held under medical evaluation. On the other hand, witnesses like Norcross and her son were scared for their life and believed the man was unstoppable with a gun.
It’s a sad reality we live in a country where far too many people have access to guns. According to a Small Arms Survey study, the number of guns in the U.S. outnumber American citizens. There are 393 million guns in circulation in this country, making 120.5 guns per 100 Americans. This is excessive and poses a grave threat to the lives of many Americans.
At Duke Hospital, the man was successfully able to steal an officer’s weapon and begin to threaten emergency room patients. This raises many questions still unanswered by Durham police. How did the officer allow the perpetrator to obtain his gun? Was the gun properly holstered to begin with? Is there body camera footage of the killing? Why did the officer resort to shooting the man? When is it morally permissible to lethally discharge a weapon?
The officer shouldn’t have resorted to lethal force. There are many ways for one to subdue a person without killing them. Even if he had to shoot, doing so in a lethal manner was unnecessary and excessive. It is never okay to take a human’s life into your own hands, especially since the man was being detained for medical evaluation. He likely wasn’t in the right mental state.
To me, this killing raises more questions about good policing than it does about gun control laws itself. How could a single perpetrator take a police officer’s weapon and why was there nobody else on the scene to assist him? There are far too many flukes in the policing of this killing, and I believe the Durham and Duke police departments must release a statement with answers.
Police officers are given a huge amount of power, but that power comes with a lot of responsibility. In times of dire emergencies, like this, it’s essential for them to follow the proper protocol and keep themselves accountable. From the facts of this situation, I feel as though the responding officer took the wrong measures to approach this situation.
Policing should never be a subjective matter; there should be a protocol to follow which should be the same each time. It shouldn’t be up to a responding officer to decide whether or not they can take someone else’s life, and there shouldn’t be such a lack of communication to the public about the killing. We should be able to see body camera footage, learn the facts of the situation or at the least, receive a statement from the police department. There are far too many inconsistencies in regards to this shooting and at the center of it, and these inconsistencies cost us a human life.
