I don't think it's wrong to inform the person that they are allowed to use force if they perceive a threat to life or severe bodily injury. If that is the law then they are merely stating a fact.
While you are right that the dispatcher might be stating a fact, (probably actually rendered as, "
It shall be an affirmative defense to the charge of manslaughter ..."), this is some of the trickiest legal ground in existence.
As we so often say, a "good shoot" isn't a "good shoot" until the DA decides not to press charges, or a Grand Jury no-bills the case, or until a jury reviews the facts and decides that the totality of evidence indicates that the defendant's need to shoot met the standards to excuse the crime of manslaughter/murder (or ADW, if the attacker lived). There is no circumstance under which one citizen may kill another and have it be
prima facie legal. So the dispatcher cannot determine that someone can lawfully shoot, and must be extremely careful not to encourage them to do so, assuming that the facts (which they are hearing one side of, over the telephone) will sustain the affirmative defense.
If the county or state policy supported such, and the dispatcher had a cheat sheet with a very specific bit of the appropriate text to read, I guess maybe they could advise the caller what things need to be true in order to prove justification. But that's complicated, and probably hard to explain to a terrified person facing an intruder over the phone.
AND, it is no guarantee. The caller could honestly meet all the requirements the dispatcher listed (ability, opportunity, jeopardy or words to that effect) and still have a jury convict them anyway. Now the dispatcher and/or their employer/agency (the state itself?) is party to the trial as having encouraged and influenced the defendant's actions.
I don't see this as a huge anti-self-defense conspiracy (
"Oh, the cops will protect you, you don't need a gun, wink wink!") but rather a real shaky piece of legal ground the state and dispatchers would be foolish to mix themselves up in.
Honestly, if someone called ME, as a private citizen, and said, "
There's a man who I think is about to attack me!" I'd want to be real careful telling that caller to shoot them. Killing someone else is a crime. If that crime happens to not be excused because a D/A, Grand Jury, and trial jury don't feel that the shooting was justified, I don't want to be found to have encouraged, directed, conspired(?) in that shooting. Doubtless 911 operators, who are far more likely to field multiple calls like that with some frequency, must be exceedingly careful not to encourage unlawful shootings. Remember the risks: You're either instructing a person to save their own life, or you're instructing them to commit the penultimate felony recognized by our legal system. And maybe both. Tread lightly!
Of course, encouraging people to die at the hands of attackers is even worse, but there should be some kind of middle ground between the two.
. Is anyone else shocked to hear this?
