‘Take him out:’ Sheriff gave order to kill unarmed man to protect patrol cars

Michael Dial was driving his 1976 pickup truck through eastern Tennessee last April, hauling a fully loaded trailer behind him, when officers tried to pull him over for driving with a suspended license, according to authorities.

But Dial, 33, refused to stop his vehicle on April 13 — so officers tried to chase him down

“If they don’t think I’ll give the damn order to kill that motherf---er, they’re full of s--t,” Shoupe can be heard saying on the video. “I love this s--t. God I tell you what, I thrive on it.”

“They said ‘we’re ramming him,’ ” Shoupe can be heard saying on bodycam footage of the incident, the TV station reports. “I said, ‘Don’t ram him, shoot him.’ Ain’t gonna tear up my cars.”


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Good grief. These assholes are given this kind of power?

 

Did you watch the video of the chase? Listen, I don't like cops going straight to that option, but the dude was in a full blown chase and using his car as a weapon. Could they have shot out his tires? Possibly. But that dude was a danger to everyone out on the road. That being said, the zeal in which the sheriff made the call is frightening, honestly.

 

That's the disturbing part

 

That's nuts. How was shooting him physically even an option? You shoot his tires.

 

Leads to stray rounds that could strike an innocent.

I would think the right thing would do would be to back off, follow but not press, and put down spike strips if available.

 

Regardless of how it should have gone down, I think this incident helps justify body cams.

 

If the guy was a physical threat to others, and not a perceived threat, then I think the call was right.

The zeal makes him look bad, but that doesn’t make the call wrong.

 

Yeah, you start driving a vehicle at someone or swinging a trailer into a moving vehicle, you are a threat.

Now, getting a hard on for shooting someone is a different point of discussion.

 

The right thing to do would to have been to pull over and stop when the blue lights came on. Probably the whole outcome would have been much different.

 

That’s what ER docs tell everyone when they come in with chest pain: the right thing was diet and exercise; here’s your grave.

 

And the doctors are correct.

 

We went to very different Sunday schools

 

You're dodging the question.

 

He wasn't a physical threat to anyone not trying to pull him over. To say shooting him in the face is the right call is absurd.

 

So he was a physical threat? Then the call is right.

There are degrees of rightness. I would think the best choice would have been to not press him.

Eventually he would have had to have stopped. But if he remained erratic, even after them backing off, the result would have been the same.

 

He was trying to get away. You don't shoot him. There is no argument otherwise. You don't shoot a guy who is trying to flee in the face. Not arguable.

 

I agree with your premise but disagree with your claim, on more than one topic, of something being not arguable. I think that is prematurely dismissive at best

 

If they are a threat to others, whether they are trying to “get away” or not, it is a right option.

It shouldn’t be option 1; but that is different from it not being an option.

 

That any portion of his line of thinking - much less his audible commands - placed a greater value on his patrol cars than the suspect's life is crazily indefensible.

Driving on a suspended license, and running from the cops are not, in and of themselves, capital offenses.

High speed pursuit or not, it's exactly in these moments when we not only have to trust the officer's decision-making, but they have to be well-worthy of that trust. Clearly, he was not, and the guy has no business continuing to be a cop, at the very least.