The video showing the final, violent interaction between Franconia Cpl. Bruce McKay and Liko Kenney will likely become a lesson on what to do - and not do - during a police stop, local law enforcement officials said.

Two immediate lessons jumped from the screen for Earl Sweeney, assistant commissioner of the state Department of Safety: Wear a bulletproof vest (McKay didn't) and never turn your back on a suspect or situation (McKay did.) Other officers, who declined to be named given the sensitivity of McKay's death, questioned whether McKay could have done more to defuse the situation. Instead, they said, he appeared to escalate it by being so aggressive with Kenney and chasing him down because of an expired registration, a minor offense.

"That doesn't make it any less a terrible crime to execute someone in cold blood and run him over twice," Sweeney said, referring to Kenney's assault on McKay. "And it doesn't make the officer any less self-sacrificing."

Sweeney had no doubt yesterday that the Franconia video will be added to the rotation of other officer-involved shooting clips that are shown to police officers during training.

"We have hundreds of videos of officers who have been shot and killed and shot and not killed," Sweeney said. "It would be a long time before it's used in New Hampshire because it would open old wounds. Instead, we'll see a (video of) an officer shot in Tupelo, Miss., and officer in Tupelo, Miss., will be seeing this shooting in Franconia, New Hampshire."

The state attorney general's office released the video, recorded from the dashboard of McKay's police SUV during his May 11 stop of Kenney, this week as part of its investigative file on the McKay-Kenney shootings. The video, which has been posted on the internet in raw and edited form, is difficult to watch.

The footage begins with a routine stop and ends minutes later in deadly violence. It shows McKay stopping Kenney around 6 p.m. for an expired registration. The two had tangled during a 2003 stop, so when Kenney realized it was McKay pulling him over, he requested another officer.

McKay told Kenney that wasn't an option, and Kenney drove off, toward home in Easton. McKay pursued Kenney and pulled in front of him, forcing Kenney to stop. McKay then maneuvered his SUV around so its front end was touching Kenney's front end.

When Kenney tried to drive around McKay's SUV, McKay rammed Kenney's car backward. Then McKay got out of his SUV, strode up to Kenney's door and blasted Kenney and his passenger with pepper spray. Seconds later, Kenney shot McKay four times with a .45-caliber pistol when McKay turned his back.

A passer-by shot Kenney dead as Kenney was driving his car over McKay's body.

The video quickly generated chatter on police websites and among local police officers about McKay's handling of the stop.

"I believe most (if not all) of us here feel compassion for the officer that was murdered," wrote "Feanor" of Nevada in an online law enforcement forum at officer.com. "The guy didn't deserve to die. But our compassion shouldn't stop us from discussing the issues at hand. We critique officer's actions in the hopes that the mistakes won't be repeated by the next officer in that situation."

"Kingsman" of Michigan questioned McKay's decision to ram Kenney's car backward several feet ("Is this normal police behavior?" he wrote) and wondered why McKay turned away from Kenney after spraying him with pepper spray. McKay knew Kenney owned a gun; just three weeks prior, McKay had posted a safety notice in the Franconia station cautioning officers to be careful with Kenney because he could be armed.

"When this first happened," Kingsman wrote on officer.com, "I was all sure the officer had been ambushed. He had my sympathy. But after seeing the video . . . he acted unprofessionally.

"That being said," Kingsman continued, "he did not deserve what happened to him."

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