Dudley Smith asks Ed Exley if he would be willing to plant evidence, beat a confession, and shoot someone in the back to ensure justice (however you wish to define it) will be served. We had you write about justice and expediency and race last night. Now just to get even more specific...Is Harry Callahan right doing what he does? And he does quite a bit not by the proverbial book, as the DA tells him below:
And of course his final act in the film:
So respond: are you like Andrew, 50/50, or like Rick, who when he thinks about his daughters, says, "Well, if that's what it takes," (or something along those lines), or like me, who finds Harry to be the flip side of Scorpio. Or else, as Harry says, "What about the rights of the victims"?
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I agree with Andrew. I fell 50/50 because if it was my daughter that was suffocating I would beat the crap out of the guy to get answers. I would do anything it took to figure out where my daughter was. On the flip side the man has rights. Even if I was 99.9% sure that he knew where the girl was, like Harry did. I don't think it is right to torture the man and den him all of his rights.
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ReplyDeleteIn another scenario, I might disagree with Harry Callahan’s method. However, when Harry was trying to find out the girl’s location, he knew that Scorpio had already murdered someone, and had taken a girl hostage. He knew that the man he was with was Scorpio. Harry thought that a girl was about to die. Weighing an innocent young girl’s death against the pain of a murderer, I think that Harry was justified to torture the murderer. If Harry didn’t know that the man was the murderer, his actions might not be justified. But at that point, Scorpio had violated the girl’s rights by raping her and taking her hostage underground. If he didn’t respect other peoples rights, there’s no reason Harry should have to respect his. Harry also invaded Scorpio’s home after he knew that Scorpio was the killer. I think that, without a doubt, the life of a young girl is worth more than the rights to privacy of her kidnapper. I can also see Harry’s justification in shooting Scorpio in the end. If Scorpio wanted to kill people, then if someone kills him it’s almost none of his business. They’re just doing what he’s doing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Andrew and Rick because we are all human. If there is a person who is trying to harm others or even someone you know, you are most likely going to do whatever it takes to make sure he/she will get punished for what he/she did. There is a possibility that the person did not commit the crime which is where I agree with Andrew. I think you can only do “whatever it takes” if you have sufficient evidence to do so. I do not think you can just go around beating up people because you have a hunch. I believe that you should start by investigating and making sure you have a warrant. I also think you should try to “cut corners” so that you don’t go against the person’s rights. If this was that serious of a situation that was relating to family members or innocent civilians, I would go about it in a different way than dirty harry did in the movie. I believe there are moral, immoral and a wrong ways of going about this. I believe Dirty Harry chose the wrong way. Even though dirty harry killed the criminal at the end, he lost all his evidence when he could have saved it by getting a simple search warrant in the beginning.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very hard question for me to answer. I like to think that in these kinds of situations I would keep a logical thought process, but how can I really know. In the heat of intense action it is hard to think about what you are doing. I know that even when I was watching these films I wanted to beat the crap out of the bad guys and felt little or no pity for them, yet, I know deep down that this is not an entirely moral thing to do. Another thing that I keep thinking about is that if Harry had kept a rational thought process then he could have gotten a warrant and arrested Scorpio, without going through the last part of the movie. But in his defense he thought a girl was drowning, so he did what could be considered necessary to save her. But the girl ended up dead and they had to let Scorpio walk, which is utterly infuriating. It is just so hard for me to wrap my mind over such large concepts. I don’t think I will ever know what is right or wrong, until I experience it for myself.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think about what Harry did to the Scorpio I think about the victims family members. The Scorpio killed a innocent woman swimming and raped and killed a child. If I was the cop on the case I would want to tell the woman's family that the man that killed that stole her life is now behind bars. In the case of the girl, Callahan thought the she could still be alive. He didn't have time to get a search warrant. What would he have told her family, Oh I could have saved your daughter's life, but I didn't have a search warrant. I honestly think that is was fine Callahan played rough with the Scorpio because he murdered the little girl. Rick said, at least when he was a lawyer, that their are exceptions to needing a search warrant. I think in this case if you need to slap someone around a little to save a innocent persons life it might be the only way. I honestly don't think, in the field, Callahan would kill the Scorpio because he needed to find out where the girl was. The Scorpio was a crazy man too. Even after the torcher scene he still hunted to kill. I loved what Callahan said after they had to let the Scorpio walk. Callahan's boss told Callahan "How do you know he (Scorpio) is going to kill again? To which Callahan response, "Because he likes it." I think any man that enjoys the brutal killing of others might need violence to stop them.
ReplyDeleteIf I were in Harry's position, I probably would have done the same thing. In Harry's eyes, there isn't really an option. A woman's life is on the line, there wasn't time to fill out paperwork. Had Harry taken Scorpio in and gotten him a lawyer, there was no way that they would have been able to save the woman in time. Harry had to chose between doing the right thing and obeying the law, and he chose to do the right thing and (trys to) save the woman's life. There was a possibility that the man was innocent, but there was also a possibility that he was guilty too. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't be able to live with the fact that an innocent person died because of me. It is possible that Scorpio was innocent, but is it really worth the gamble?
ReplyDeleteI think that Harry did do the right thing. I agree with Rick. I think that one should use all possible measures to stop a crazy killer like Scorpio. I would not want to put the public at risk to a further psychopathic killer and with the risk of Scorpio getting off and the charges not sticking. So I think that Harry didn't want to take that risk so he had no choice but to kill him.
ReplyDeleteWhen you look up ‘justice’ in the dictionary one of the definitions that comes up is ‘moral rightness’. But everybody is brought up having and believing in different morals, which makes justice very personal. People have a line, which they don’t want to cross, but everybody’s line is in a different spot. Personally, I think Dirty Harry could have handled this situation better. He didn’t have to shoot Scorpio when he had already stopped; He could have called his superiors when he was at the hospital and they could have gotten a warrant and done the paper work. I think he made enough bad mistakes to lead him to torture. I do not think he made a mistake when it came to torturing Scorpio, but I also think that if he had managed things from the beginning he might not have been faced with that predicament. As for the last scene, I think Harry had every right to do what he did. He used his gun in self-defense, saved a little boy, and never broke the law. I think that the more you cross your own personal line, the more blurred it becomes, and the more confused you become with where you stand. The thing is, when you cross the line put there by the law you are (supposedly) punished. When you cross the line put there by yourself, you are forever altered. But which one is worse?
ReplyDeleteI think when Harry was trying to save the girl he did the right thing. He did what he had to do to have any chance of saving the girl. He didn't have any time to allow for the due process of law, because he thougt it was aboslutely necessary in order to save the girl's life. On the other hand, I thought that in the final scene harry did not act fairly. I think he knew Scorpio would reach for the gun, giving Harry an excuse to kill him. In that situation, he was not in distinct and pressing life or death circumstance, he could have arrested scorpio instead. So overall, I think Harry did the just thing some of the time.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this is a really difficult situation to tell whether Callahan was right. Since, I know that the Scorpio was in fact guilty Callahan’s actions seem justified. Callahan had reasons for what he did and didn’t torture and beat the Scorpio out of revenge. I think in this situation Callahan was right for what he did. Callahan was able to stop the man who was killing people for his own entertainment. If the movie had been set up differently and it wasn’t known that the Scorpio was the killer then Callahan seems like he would be in the wrong for what he did. I agree with Rick that if that is what it takes, but only if it the person is actually guilty. I also agree with Callahan on the rights of the victims, but the rights of the victims only seem fair if Callahan knew it to be true that Scorpio was the killer.
ReplyDeleteI think that Harry was doing the right thing in that situation because he was trying to save the girl. However, if we had not known that he was in fact guilty it would have been a sticky situation. I think part of me believes that Harry was right in what he did because the girl was dying and we knew he was guilty. I know that if that girl were someone close to me I would have wanted Harry to do what he did. I do not believe that torture is the right method for solving things and getting information out of suspects. This is because like we were talking about in class today, many people would say what the torturer wants them to say whether it is true or not. Harry did not know whether the girl was still alive or not but if I was the girls family I would have wanted Harry to torture the suspect in the chance that she was still alive. So, I agree with Andrew in being 50/50 because what Harry did was wrong by torturing the Scorpio but there was a girl’s life on the line.
ReplyDeleteIn this particular situation given just the information Harry knew, it is right of him to do what he did. The life innocent civilians were defiantly at risk. I believe that even thought this was discouraged by the police chief, police officers in general should maintain a high level of discretion and should know what needs to be done, and if breaking the rules prevents an innocent person's death than I believe the choice should be obvious.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, there are circumstances when the suspect could be innocent and does not deserve to be stripped of their rights. This is where the police officer's discretion comes into play. They need to be able to make split second decisions about what is more important. I believe that officers would only use expediency when they know the suspect is an obvious threat if let go. In Dirty Harry, Harry saw the wound where he stabbed the man and knew where he was staying. This is a good enough reason to proceed. In the end, officers should disobey the rules if it means that a dangerous person will be apprehended.
At first, Harry Callahan’s actions are, in my opinion, justified. Scorpio has already killed multiple people and has set a time limit on another: the young girl. Callahan is under the belief that the girl is still alive, and knows that he doesn’t have time to obtain a warrant before the girl supposedly dies. As a result of this exigent circumstance, as Rick called it, Callahan jumps the fence. So far, so good. He chases Scorpio out into the open, where he has no place to run. Still good. Scorpio puts his hands above his head, the universal sign of surrender, and Callahan shoots him. Not so good. In shooting Scorpio, Callahan metaphorically crosses the line, allowing him to access such methods as torture to quickly figure out the girl’s location. Don’t forget – by surrendering to Callahan, Scorpio was basically offering himself up to arrest. Granted, he may have had hidden weapons up his sleeve, but odds are that he was caught unawares and didn’t have time to prepare for Callahan. By arresting Scorpio, Callahan would have not only been able to legally bring in an insane killer, but also gained an upper hand that could be used as leverage in determining the girl’s location (my guess is that one is more likely to talk if they’re already in handcuffs). Instead, Callahan decides not to take any chances and shoots Scorpio, crossing the line and leading to Scorpio walking out as a free man.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to have to agree with Andrew and say that I'm 50-50. In this case I think that Harry Callahan was justified in his actions because Scorpio was a ruthless killer who needed to be stopped. Because I knew that Scorpio was guilty, I supported Callahan in his search for Scorpio, as questionable as the results may have been. In this way, I’m on the same page with Rick, thinking that Callahan should go to all measures to stop Scorpio, especially because there was a girl who’s life he thought was on the line. However, there is definitely a flip side of this situation. If there was question about whether Scorpio was guilty or not, I think I may change my mind. Because we (as watchers) know that Scorpio is guilty, and so does Callahan, it makes it more acceptable in my mind. If we did not know that, I would feel like Callahan crossed the line and maybe he should not have taken such drastic measures. This is a tough question; one that I feel is very situational. Because I feel that it’s situational I feel that I’m 50-50.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with what Cameron said. I believe for a large majority of the movie Callahan acts justly. I think that Callahan had a right to pursue capturing Scorpio because Scorpio had already killed two people and was about to kill a third. Scorpio had left messages explaining what he was going to do and how to prevent the deaths of innocent civilians. The police tried to give Scorpio what he wanted, the money, but Scorpio still did not stop. I think that Scorpio definitely deserved to be arrested. Many people have said that when Callahan climbed the fence he was crossing a line, I agree that by law he is not allowed to do that, but at the same time someone’s life was on the line. I think that, as many people have said, I would want Callahan to shoot him if I knew the person that was about to die. I agree that if that person was not going to die it would end up being a sticky situation, but all the letters Scorpio had given the police turned out be true, therefore I think Callahan was justified. I think that the shooting of Scorpio might have been over the top considering Scorpio had already surrendered, but I think Callahan’s position was very difficult, he was trying to safe a life and was acting in the moment. Overall, I think that I agree with Andrew and I would definitely want Scorpio to get what he deserved if my loved one was in danger.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Andrew and Rick because (although I don't have teenage daughters) I would bet the crap out of a murderous psycho if I was an officer, but only if I was absolutely certain that he had a girl hidden somewhere. At the same time, I'd know what I was doing was wrong because, yes he may be a crazy murderer , but he is still a human being like the rest of us, and still has his/her rights. In this case I believe Scorpio's "torture" and death was justifiable only because he had killed so many other people before hand in cold blood. I know for a fact I would have acted just as Callahan did.
ReplyDeleteI'm 40/60 on the situation of peoples rights v. expediency. 40 percent of me believes that if a cop is absolutely sure that the suspect in question committed the crime like Harry Callahan than it's okay to do whatever is necessary to convict the person. However, there is also that possibility that the suspect is innocent and they desire their rights. I would be equally pissed off if my son or daughter was convicted of a crime they did not commit. So I think having those laws in place to prevent cops from just doing whatever they feel like is a good thing. There needs to be a line at some point that cops just can't cross because they believe they caught the bad guy. As we saw in L.A. Confidential the cops aren't always right and because they tricked the boys and didn't give them a lawyer the men were killed in the end for a crime they didn't commit. At the same time Scorpio was going around killing innocent people and if I knew he had a girl captive I would probably do the same thing as Harry Callahan.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both Andrew and Rick. Harry knew Scorpio was guilty because of the other killings, so I believe that searching his place for evidence was an understandable action. Harry also believed at the time that the girl might still be alive, and if he waited for the search warrant it would be too late. But, I do believe that the torture was wrong. Harry had the upper hand in this particular situation. He had the weapon. Also, he didn’t have a knife wound and a bullet hole in his leg, so he was able to move much faster than Scorpio. Harry also had another cop with him, and if it was necessary, he could have called in back up. I thought that when Harry started stepping on Scorpio’s wounds, he crossed the line and committed an unnecessary action. This was the last chance to save the girl’s life, and if I had been in Harry’s situation, I would have searched without the warrant, but I wouldn’t have tortured Scorpio the way he did.
ReplyDeleteI want to say I’ am 50-50 but I still think about the moral aspect of the situation. If that girl was my child then yes, I would want the cop to do anything in order to put a man in jail for what he has done. But I also believe that there is a line where Harry did cross and went too far. Scorpio was obviously not going anywhere so I thought Harry’s decision to shoot him was not a good one. I agree with Emma about the last scene. I believe that Harry had no right shooting Scorpio. I think he shot him because of what Scorpio did to that girl and how it reminded him of his past, but that’s still not a good enough reason to take away someone’s life. I think that Callahan chose correctly because he was running on a time limit of the girl’s life. The girl ended up being dead in the end so I think that if he chose to wait for more evidence I think that Scorpio would be long gone and they would have never found the girl. I think that you can't really choose a side on this because each situation would have result in a different opinion.
ReplyDeleteI was 5050 because if it was me I would torture him to find out where the girl was. But you must also remember that the man could be innocent and this is not fair to take justice into your own hands. So from an inside point of view I think it was justified to torture him. From an outside point of view I believe that it was not the right thing to do. It is not fair to disregard peoples rights even if you are 100% they are guilty.
ReplyDeleteI think this is hard because I tend to agree with what Harry did, but we have the benefit as the audience of knowing with 100% certainty that he was torturing the a guilty man. I think in a real life situation, you will never be completely sure without a single doubt about a person's guilt or innocence.
ReplyDeleteBasically, by torturing a suspect, it's a gamble. Because if Harry had been wrong, it would be blatant police brutality and a clear violation of the law. However, it because more excusable, and we tend to condone it when Harry is correct about the suspect, even if torturing him is still unlawful. I would lean towards Harry being right to torture him, but I think it is conditional, and makes a big difference knowing what the criminal has done, and knowing the outcome.
I think Harry was doing the right thing. He knew a girls life was at stake and the only way to save her was to jump the fence and find Scorpio. I also think it was neccasary to torture Scorpio to find the girl. He clearly wasn't going to give up her location wihout a little "encouragement". Scorpio complained about his rights being violated, but I think he gave up those rights when he decided to break laws, and violate others rights. I think it would be another thing if wasn't certain the man was guilty.
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