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The very baseline issue here is that the cost of non-compliance should not be extrajudicial killing (except maybe in situations of extreme risk of harm / death).
The contentious part seems to be whether people believe Kaba was trying to get away or whether there was real risk of harm / death to the officers. It might have been scary for the officers but I'm not convinced it reached a threshold that lethal force was required.
It's pretty obvious why there are armed response units. I think rather there's a disagreement on whether they acted proportionally or lawfully, or whether infact it was an abuse of police powers and a miscarriage of justice.
And you know what ...it's possible to say all this AND think crooks who do bad things are bad. Go figure
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The very baseline issue here is that the cost of non-compliance should not be extrajudicial killing (except maybe in situations of extreme risk of harm / death).
As a general principle, I agree. Some of the incidents you hear about people being shot in the USA due to not following police orders that they don't understand/hear, or that are actually impossible to follow, are horrific.
As you say, the question is whether the police acted proportionately in this specific situation. I'd say that not all "non-compliance" is equal. This doesn't sound like just not stopping, it was someone who had effectively been stopped attempting to break free by using the car as a weapon. Add to that the fact that the reason the car had been stopped was due to its involvement in a previous shooting and the actions of the police start to sound less unreasonable.
ffm
It's fascinating that this issue is absolutely clear to so many people, but in completely opposite directions. I can't work out if that's a sign that the answer really isn't obvious or that people are just bringing their own biases to it really hard.
Can I ask what you think the purpose of armed officers is if not to confront people who might have lethal weapons and/or have possibly recently been involved in violent crime?