opinion

An officer ran over an armed suspect. Good for him

The video is breathtaking.

A police car zips past another one, cuts across the street and rams into a man walking down the street. The man — and his loaded, stolen rifle — fly into the air.

The dashcam video has been seen across the country, sparking a debate about whether Marana Police Officer Michael Rapiejko was justified in his action.

The police chief and the Pima County Attorney's Office say he was, noting that the man, Mario Valencia, had pointed the gun at officers and himself, fired shots into the air and was walking toward a heavily populated area. Police say he'd already robbed a convenience store, broke into a church, invaded a home and stolen a car.

Police had no good options. They could follow him slowly, waiting to see what he did next — and face second guessing if it turned tragic. They could risk a shootout or set up a sniper, which would almost surely have left Valencia dead.

Or they could try an unorthodox method, as Rapiejko did. Valencia spent two days in the hospital and then went to jail. He's alive. No officers or civilians were injured. It would seem the incident turned out as well as could be expected.

Two other important points shouldn't be lost here:

— Cameras make a difference. You can see what the officer did. You can see earlier images of Valencia pointing his gun at officers and himself, and reacting as they got closer. There can be no dispute about the sequence of events. It's another good argument for widespread deployment of body cams.

— The officer's name would still be secret under a misguided bill that the Legislature passed but Gov. Doug Ducey vetoed. The bill, pushed by police unions, was an overreaction to events in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere. Rapiejko has an exemplary record, which we would not know if his name had been kept secret.