Quote:
Originally Posted by icehog3
Shoot first, ask questions later.
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It would suck rather a lot to kill an innocent guy whose only crime was to look like a police artist sketch.
I was in the car with my ex-boyfriend while we were going through a small town. We got pulled over by a whole freaking brigade of cops who asked a whole lot of questions and held us there for quite some time, checking our registration and ID's. It could have gotten uglier except that one of the cops noticed the designation on the ex-boyfriend's license. He has cerebal palsy, walks with crutches and drives with hand controls. When they actually noticed that, they looked surprised and rather disappointed.
At that point they let us go, but were unwilling to tell us why we'd been pulled over. It was not for any imaginable traffic violation; we were going fairly slowly as we were looking for a restroom stop. The only guess I have is that he and his car matched the description of someone who had done something horrendous enough to have the entire force out looking for him.
It apparently became obvious to the cops that he was not the one who did whatever when they noticed his disability (it isn't immediately evident when he's sitting down). But I have to wonder what might have happened if they hadn't, or if he hadn't been disabled and thus a more viable suspect.
Police sketch artists are good but not perfect, and I'd hate to think of people getting shot because of a resemblance. There's certainly a good argument for being prepared to defend yourself before some crazy shoots you first, but I don't think I'd want to cap some guy in the head who wasn't doing anything suspicious, just because he looked like this sketch.