"The Correct Way To Arrest A Terrorist"?

What's in quotes is the title of a video that is making its rounds.  Here it is (click here if you can't see embedded video).



First, I get no indication that the criminal is a terrorist.  He seems to be the average bank-robber.  I suppose it's the commentator's remark about terrorists in Spain that have caused people to make that otherwise-unfounded connection.

Now, from a Catholic moral viewpoint, is this a "correct" way to arrest anybody?  Absolutely not!  The use of that magnitude of force was unwarrented.  At the time of the crash, the hostages had already been freed; the criminal at that point in time was endangering no one, so there was no "rescue" motive for usage of force.  Moreover, the criminal could have easily been apprehended in much more safe manners.  He could have been given a crippled motorcycle (low gas, high gears disabled) that would have caused him to slow down, allowing for orderly and less dangerous capture.

There was no way that the criminal could have avoided collision.  Was injury to the criminal intended?  It certainly was foreseeable.  If he had died as a result of his injuries, I suspect the police would have been held responsible for unjustified manslaughter, if not murder.  I also noted the disregard for the safety of people passing by.  I truly hope the commentator's attitude did not mirror that of the Spanish police.

What I fund troubling is the salivation that seems to be going on amongst some conservatives, and even Catholics, over this footage.  I had some exchange over private emails regarding this, voicing what I just voiced above.  One snide comment was that I'd prefer to rehabilitate the man over milk and cookies.  My reader chose to ignore the suggestions I made for a more reasonable capture.  He also mocked my concern for people passing by, perhaps not noticing the car and pedestrians in the background as the crash occurred.  I believe his conscience was pricked when I pointed out that the "vigilante" in some folks, while understandable, was unacceptable.

Ladies and gentlemen, we need to take our frustrations and other emotions caused by crime and criminals and turn them off.  There are concepts that we used to respect, such as "due process" and "rule of law".  Understand that if we advocate their suspension in cases such as the robber, we will not be able to invoke them when our own safety is threatened by overbearing police.  And yes, they were overbearing.  We really need to watch ourselves as we gloat over flicks such as this.  If we allow those mental patterns to continue unchecked, we will be seduced into becoming footsoldiers for the next tyrant that comes along.