Boston 25 News Security Expert Dan Linskey on Providence police shooting

BOSTON – A deadly police-involved shooting on a busy Providence, Rhode Island highway has some questioning the decision made by officers.

Boston 25 News reporter Jacqui Heinrich asked Boston 25 News security expert and former Boston Police Superintendent Dan Linskey about how difficult this type of decision is for officers to make.

One key piece of the puzzle is whether there was sufficient threat of bodily harm for officers to open fire on a pickup truck in the middle of a highway, right in front of a mall.

>>RELATED: Police: Searching for stolen cruiser suspect continues after highway shooting

So far, police have not reveled whether there was in fact a weapon in the car, or any reason to believe that lives were in danger.

"It’s a cause of concern, something that we would want to know as quickly as possible. Clearly the analysis changes if there was a gun in that vehicle, clearly the officers were in more danger than if there wasn’t a gun in the vehicle,” Linskey said.

Police were searching for Donald Morgan, a man arrested after a crash Wednesday night who allegedly stole a police cruiser Thursday morning.

Officer received a tip that Morgan attempted to carjack a white pickup truck, and shortly thereafter began a chase with the vehicle that was ultimately shot.

Police said the driver of that truck would not stop for officers and was putting other lives at risk by operating erratically.

Linskey says it’s impossible at this point to guess what the officers were thinking at the moment they opened fire, but if they were going after who they thought to be Morgan purely for stealing a motor vehicle it would not warrant that kind of response.

"Obstruction, stealing a motor vehicle, for the danger that individuals were placed in. I would not, if I were the supervisor, I would not have allowed that. I would have told them to call it off,” he said.

Linskey estimates from quick analysis of the video that about 14 rounds were fired into the truck.

TOP STORIES:

Cox Media Group