Drugs are not bad. Weapons are not bad. People are not bad. Intentions don't matter a whole lot, of course that is entirely conditioned upon your philosophical position. What if she intended to kill him? What if she intended to disable him? What if she was confused and meant to escape at all cost (poor judgement). No doubt she had bad judgement. Maybe the cop did too. What would you do if somebody tried to kill you using a car as a weapon? This about ones' actions.
Your position here depends on your ethical stance - whether the end justifies the means or vice versa, and that depends on many other premises all of which are pure conjecture. Sorry about the kids. Interesting how people rush to conclusions based on gaps that one fills in to create in their mind a scenario worthy of judgement. Glad some of you aren't here to judge me. Billyl's assertion is a valid assertion. The person was breaking the law. Assuming that is correct and that her actions supported the officers' judgement to stop here, then the officer was just doing his job. How would you have "judged" this situation if the officers' bullet(s) missed her and she subsequently ran over and killed a pedestrian while in flight? The upshot of the story is has nothing to do with ones' right to get medicine, whatever their means may be. It's about actions that can be judged to be lawful or not.
Folks of America: remember if you are American you are all about defending ones' right to be free. You should be willing to die for anothers' right to be free and say what they want to say. But in a free society laws and their enforcement are
necessary.
It would have been reasonable for the officer to follow the 'victim' and request back up. Maybe that was his "intention."
At any rate IMO the original article was very poorly written.
I have problems with journalists.
Ethics is a branch of Philosophy, along with Aesthetics, they comprise the study known as Axiology. It would behoove the entire world to advocate that these studies be offered in high schools. I previously argued that they be mandatory for any college degree, cf Philosophical Journals.