I think people are arguing what's moral and police are arguing what's legal. Morality and legality are not the same thing. Most of us probably know that. But two are arguing using legal thoughts vs moral thoughts.

If the cops just let him go or offered to get him home somehow, which is an extreme radical thought for police, Rayshard would be alive and innocent bystanders wouldn't have been in harm's way. Remember three bullets were shot. Two of which hit Rayshard and the third hit a bystander's SUV.

If police simply sucked it up and let their ego be harmed and let Rayshard run away... No one would have been harmed. Imagine that third bullet hit a baby... Hyperbolic? Maybe. But well within the realm of possibility. They didn't need to put that hypothetical baby (turns out it was just an SUV in this case) at harm.

Here is a thought experiment:

Place two cops and a suspect with a taser in an area. Now sprinkle innocent bystanders throughout the area. The goal of the police is to preserve all life. The goal of the suspect is to escape. What should the police do with the goal of preserving all life as the goal? It doesn't seem that ridiculous to just let the suspect run away. All life is preserved.

The suspect achieves his goal, but so do the police. All life is preserved and that should be the highest priority. The bonus for police in Rayshard's case is they can still get justice because they have his identification. Justice should be second priority. It's life, liberty, then justice for all.

Now change the police goal to justice. Now what do the police do? Now preserving all life isn't the goal. Now we chase the suspect so we can apprehend him because we need to haul him into jail for DWI evidentiary evidence (blood samples and/or BAC machine) so we can get justice for his DWI. Based on the continuum of force when Rayshard is trying to obstruct justice we shoot the suspect and an SUV nearby. Justice served? Not really, but Rayshard was obstructing his path to justice and police can't have that.

Anyway, I think I'm losing my train of thought here. But basically we need to align the justice system to match society's morals. We need to prioritize preserving the life of everyone including police above all else instead of "serving justice" to hell with all life in the vicinity.

*Preserving all life simply isn't the goal of police. *

In the Rayshard scenario if they simply didn't give chase they would have been out of taser range in seconds... Done and done. Get him later. Or... avoid that scenario and offer to get him home some other way in the first place.

We as a society need police to value life above justice