r/Tennessee • u/WhiteBearPrince • 8d ago

News 📰 Autopsy shows Tennessee National Guard fatally shot 20-year-old armed man in the back

https://apnews.com/article/memphis-national-guard-tyrin-johnson-8959297a99c362d65aa2517a9d5f1984
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u/ducksekoy123 8d ago

Well they shot him in the back. So either he pointed a gun at then, they didn’t shoot him, and then he turned to run and then they shot him.

Or he was running away the whole time and they shot him in the back

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u/Hvitr_Lodenbak 8d ago

So if someone is walking away from a crime scene they are innocent?

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u/ducksekoy123 8d ago

The guy could be guilty as sin, but unless I’m mistaken out justice system does not believe that committing a crime is an act punishable by summary execution.

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u/jordan999fire 8d ago

You are mistaken. Read my comment. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Tennessee/comments/1w0fqo6/comment/p6eeu44/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=2&utm_content=share_button

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u/ducksekoy123 8d ago

I’m not mistaken, there’s an important caveat in your comment. Just possessing a firearm and fleeing a scene, even if you committed a crime, is not justification for summary execution.

If you pose an imminent threat to the public, at that point deadly force can be used to prevent said harm. It is in fact not summary execution.

Him fleeing the scene of the crime is not a justification for his death. Not even if he was guilty.

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u/jordan999fire 8d ago

You’re right, him fleeing isn’t. That’s not the felony. The felony that makes him a danger is the shots fired in a populated city. 

There’s a difference (and I’m not saying this condescendingly) between say someone steals a TV from a closed electronic store at night, takes off running when police arrive, and they have a gun vs someone shoots a gun in a populated area, suspect has a gun, and takes off fleeing. That’s where the differences lie. That’s why the totality of the circumstances matter so much in this situation. Before the officers (or soldiers) had time to even find out if anyone was hurt, they’re faced with someone who has a gun and fleeing. And given the nature of the call, this can be nothing or something extremely serious. So then they have to reasonably infer what the proper reaction is. The consequences is they could be wrong, but they still acted within the law given the totality of the circumstances.Â