Torching the cabin was wrong.

[lynne]

211. At this point, are they even sure what caused the fire?

The assumption is that it was ignited by tear gas thrown in by the police. I have no problem with them using tear gas to try to remove him. He really didn't leave them any other options. Unfortunate that tear gas can ignite fires but he had many opportunities to give himself up and refused. Not to mention that he had lobbed a smoke bomb at them in an attempt to flee the cabin.

I'm sure there were concerns about it getting dark and the darkness giving him an advantage for a possible escape. They couldn't allow him to continue killing and that's what he had vowed to do.

I think you said it best when you said in the OP "It was wrong from a moral perspective to kill him if he didn't pose a threat." While that is true, that certainly was not the case in this instance. He very much posed a threat to each officer there. He was trained by both military and police - he was better armed than the police - and every officer there was in harms way. All he had to do was get off a lucky shot out the window.

The police may have done some things wrong but yesterday wasn't one of them. The guy died the way he wanted to and he won't kill again. That's a win-win in my book.