NEWS CONFERENCE 941

from my previous thinking. So I pulled out a release I made a year
ago to see if there has been any substantial change in my thinking
since July 30, 1967. And I want to quote from this statement which
was made in the wake of the Cambridge disorders. I said at that
time: "Burning, looting, sniping, even under the banner of civil rights,
are still arson, larceny and murder. There are established penalties
for such felonies, and we cannot change the punishment simply be-
cause the crime occurred during a riot. The laws must be consistently
enforced to protect all our people. If an angry man burns his neigh-
bor's house, or loots his neighbor's store, or guns his neighbor down,
no reason for his anger will be enough of an excuse. " So you see,
I haven't changed at all. I've thought in this fashion for a consider-
able period of time, I would guess all my life.

Q. Would you think that this will be a main issue in the campaign?

A. Absolutely, it's a main issue. You can see the candidates nocking
to it in droves, because they're now conversant with the fact that the
people of this country are just not going to put up with a soft line on
crime any longer.

(Shooting Looters)

Q. Governor, a point of clarification: would you advocate shooting
a looter over a pair of shoes?

A. No. I don't think that that statement — that oversimplification —
really indicates what I said in those hypothetical questions I posed
during that speech in New York. I've said many times that the judg-
ment of the amount of force to be used in the apprehension of a
criminal, regardless of the severity of his crime, is a judgment that
must be made by the police officer on the scene. I don't think that
looters should ever be shot. First of all, I think they should surrender
when they're challenged and apprehended by the police; and if they
are, then they will serve the penalty for whatever kind of looting
they're doing. If they're doing petty larceny, they'll serve the penalty
for petty larceny; if it's grand larceny, they'll serve that penalty. If
they have committed a very serious crime in the course of their break-
ing and entering, they'll pay the penalty for that — be it murder,
rape, or whatever the case. But a policeman trying to apprehend a
fugitive has no way of knowing what crime he has committed. And
when that fugitive runs in the face of an order to halt, then I think
the policeman is justified in using the severest means to stop him,
because how would the policeman feel in retrospect if he had let
him go away thinking it was simply a petty larceny, and then found