American cops might be quick to open fire, but there were still conditions they had to meet. The most basic was that an officer had to believe the other person posed a threat, whether to the officer or to someone else.
Usually, even if someone was paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair, as long as they held something that could be considered a threatening "weapon," whether scissors or a length of iron pipe, emptying a magazine into them still fell within the bounds of "reasonable force."
But if someone was simply running away and had no weapon, they were almost certain not to get shot.
Of course, that was only from the standpoint of officer safety. Given the state of public safety in this country, officers under enormous pressure sometimes did make "reasonable" use of the rules to kill suspects.
Generally, even if those officers were not held accountable afterward, they would be reassigned away from frontline duties. Of course, that specifically referred to the situation before 2015.
The Eric Garner case happened in New York in 2014, followed by the George Floyd case in Minnesota in 2020. After that, whether police brutality landed an officer in trouble depended not only on "reasonableness," but also on skin color.
Seeing the Goat Wesen Billy Capra spring three feet straight up like an actual goat and disappear into the bushes, Nick and the brothers had no time to think. They vaulted the spiked iron fence and forced their way through the prickly branches in pursuit.
The Thorn House inn was right beside them. In fact, these neatly trimmed bushes were themselves part of the inn's "fence."
The three chased him around to the back of the inn, crossed another hedge, and entered the small, distinctively designed garden.
Even while fleeing for his