This was an ongoing police hunt in terribly dense woods - danger to the officers everywhere, including 'look up' - tree stands, or even plain old climbing some tree to hide as a possibility. IMO, those police had detailed orders from their Commander on 'what to do'. Just like if you have ever watched 'Cops', Command directs car chases - whether or not to begin one, stop now?, such decisions are able to be made with some thoughtfulness and some detachment from being right in the action (stirred with adrenaline, fear, 'fight or flight' primitive emotions, rage, say 'you killed my fellow officer'. Remember the officer who caught Frein talked about the latter. feeling being inside of him at the time.
IMO, for the prison escape, the Command said ONLY IF you ARE ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE you will be safe can you take either of them alive. Remember, for all the officer knew, Matt was 'faking' his coughs', perhaps looked to be 'feigning' illness or drunkenness and actually was poised to 'take out' whatever officers got near him. And, as to Sweat, he was shot 2X in the back - if you look at the pic' of his without his shirt (he has the O2 mask on...), it sure looks to me like an exit wound from one of the shots, and sure looks to me like that officer who shot Matt WAS clearly shooting to kill, NOT wound, and the bullets, at least the one for which we can see the exit wound, missed Sweat's heart by just a tinch.
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IMO: Palmer belongs LOCKED UP, not roaming around out on bond wearing his funeral suit. IMO: Warden has to be sacked - quit with this 'on leave with pay' baloney ASAP. Very, very creepy to me that those prison workers were unionized - for instance, did you read about how the union OPPOSED the guards going through the metal detector & xray (whatever...) as they came to work and left????????? OUTRAGEOUS Palmer trots out with a huge manilla envelope carrying A BIG PAINTING OR TWO!!! marked 'NAACP' ------ tells you so very much about how super duper crooked to the core Palmer is (see, any 'innocent' worker who noticed that envelope was to think, 'Oh Saint Palmer is going to get something important to the local branch of the NAACP in his free time -------- wow, what a wonderful, caring prison guard he is!!' EUWWWWW - literally makes me nauseous as to how sicko and creepy-to-the-core Palmer is.