The tragic death of Hubert Winters, the 63-year-old taxi driver who was killed during a robbery at a Subway restaurant in New Providence last Saturday, has raised questions about the rules of engagement for police officers who are present while a crime is being committed.

Surely, the pain that is being experienced by the Winters family on losing their loved one must have been made more excruciating by the circumstances that led to him being shot. By all accounts, Winters was a hardworking taxi driver, who apparently had started work a 5 o' clock that morning, based on his wife's claim that she last saw him at that time when he left home. That afternoon, he stopped at Subway in Palmdale to get something to eat, and was standing in line to be served when a robber came in brandishing a submachine gun.

One of the customers in the restaurant was an off-duty police officer, and according to reports, he became involved in a struggle with the robber and the gun went off, killing Winters.

A very legitimate question that has been raised in the public debate on the issue is this: Would Winters still be alive if the off-duty police officer had not attempted to disarm the robber? In all likelihood, the answer is yes. In robberies of this nature, the perpetrator's primary objective in using a weapon is to instill fear in his intended victims.

Ironically, one of the warnings that the police themselves give to persons when confronted by an armed robber is to not fight back, but rather give the person what they want. This warning is usually accompanied by the sage advice that material possessions can be replaced, but a life cannot. But does the same advice apply to a police officer, whether he is off duty or not?

Policemen are trained to deal with matters of this nature differently, and it is this fact that makes it difficult to criticize the decision made by the off-duty police officer in the Subway incident.

To be sure, based on his training, he no doubt acted instinctively, believing that he could subdue the robber and prevent another brazen crime from taking place. Had he succeeded and arrested the culprit, he would most certainly have been hailed as a hero by his colleagues and Bahamians in general.

So whether he acted properly is not an issue. Whether he used good judgment, however, is another matter. In all likelihood, he had a split second in which to make a decision, and it really serves no purpose to now second guess whether he made the right decision. As a trained law-enforcement officer, he must be given the benefit of the doubt that he did what he considered to be the right thing to do at the time.

All this, of course, does little to diminish the pain being experienced by the Winters family. Certainly, they can be forgiven for being convinced that they would not now be struggling to come to grips with the murder of their loved one, if the attempted robbery had not unfolded the way it did.

What makes their anguish even more agonizing is that the intervention of the police officer did not result in the arrest of the robber, who escaped and is still at large. Meanwhile, they are making plans to bury their loved one.

This is certainly one of those tragic situations where those who handle community relations for the Police Department should be working overtime, offering whatever support they can to this bereaved family. Hopefully, that has been the case ever since this tragic incident occurred.