To kill or not to kill

I was just reading about a case where a pharmacist shot and killed a robber at work.  This is understandable in a twisted sort of way if you have worked in pharmacy.  

See, right now, he could be facing manslaughter charges (although most everyone is saying it will probably be fully justifiable under self-defense).  He might even get a civil suit from the criminal scum's grieving family (because he was such a nice angel boy and never did nothing to nobody!)

But the alternative is even worse for the pharmacist. Like trying to explain to the DEA where all his Class-IIs (narcotics) went. 

"Oh, a robber stole all your morphine, oxycodone, codene, and oxycontin?  Awww, that's too bad... Your license is revoked.  Permanently."

And yes, that could and probably would happen.  The DEA is anal to the point that losing a single morphine tablet can get a technician fired.   Narcotics have to be accounted for at the end of each day and a report filed with the DEA on it.  Any discrepancy is treated as a full criminal offense and people will assume you are guilty if you are in any way involved.  There are no "honest" mistakes with narcotics.  Believe me, been there, have a t-shirt.

However, on the other hand, even a charge of manslaughter will not necessarily revoke this pharmacist's license.  Even if he's taken to court, sued by the family, he'll still probably get to use his licence.  Pharmacies will probably still hire him. Maybe not top of the line places or famous places but someone won't mind that he killed someone protecting those Class-IIs.   

Manslaugter is a state level crime.  Pissing off the DEA, even over something not your fault, is federal level (and they will act on it).  Even if his license wasn't revoked, he'd have to explain for the rest of his life to pharmacy managers during interviews and performance reviews why he let a robber walk off with everything in the C-II safe. 


The choice to kill or not kill was easy here.  I'm sure it was still agonizing but from a professional point of view, the pharmacist really had no choice.  The criminal wasn't just there to steal all his narcs.  The poor little scumbucket was there to end his career.  And the pharmacist obviously didn't feel like bagging groceries for the rest of his life.