When he finally catches up with the killer, and the girl is due to die at any time as her oxygen is cut off, he steps on the psycho's wounded leg in an effort to get him to give the girl's location. He is unsuccessful and the girl is pulled up from the ground dead.
Even though everyone knows who committed the crime the killer is going to get off. The DA tells Harry : "Where the hell does it say that you’ve got a right to kick down doors, torture suspects, deny medical attention and legal counsel? Where have you been? Does Escobedo ring a bell? Miranda? I mean, you must have heard of the Fourth Amendment. What I’m saying is that man had rights.” Everyone sane watching this movie know that there is no way this child rapist and murderer should get away with the crime because of some legal loopholes.
Roger in his review said : "The movie clearly and unmistakably gives us a character who understands the Bill of Rights, understands his legal responsibility as a police officer, and nevertheless takes retribution into his own hands. Sure, Scorpio is portrayed as the most vicious, perverted, warped monster we can imagine -- but that's part of the same stacked deck. The movie's moral position is fascist. No doubt about it." I think there is a doubt about it. Harry doesn't take the law into his own hands. He only does what he knows he must do. If a psycho has a girl buried under ground and time is running out on her I hope there would be a police officer brave enough to stand on his wounded leg in an effort to save the girl.
To me Harry is like Will Kane from High Noon. He was a man who felt that he must do the right thing no matter what those around him told him. He would not subjugate his individual integrity when he knew what he was doing was right. At the end the the movie Harry, like Will Kane, throws his badge away.
In his next movie, Magnum Force, Harry answers the charges that he is a fascist in the following dialogue with his boss.
Harry : That's just fine, But how does murder fit in? When the police start
becoming their own executioners where's it going to end, Briggs? Pretty soon you
start executing people for jaywalking. And executing people for traffic
violations. Then you end up executing your neighbor because the dog pisses on
your lawn.
Briggs : There isn't one man that we've killed that didn't deserve what was
coming to him.
Harry : Yes there is. Charlie McCoy.
Briggs : What would you have done.
Harry : I would have upheld the law.
Briggs : What the hell do you know about the law? You're a great cop, Harry. You had a chance to join the team, but you'd rather stick to the system.
Harry : Briggs, I hate the goddam system. But until someone comes along
with some changes that make sense, I'll stick with it.
Harry Callahan is not a fascist. The movie may have
been saying that the pendulum was swinging too far in favor of individual rights
at the expense of societal rights, but that doesn't make it fascist. Americans
have the rights to express their opinion and that is what this movie did. Roger needs to take another look at this movie and at Magnum Force. We could use a few more people like Harry Callahan around today.
And by the way Roger, in AFI’s Poll of Heroes and Villains, Dirty Harry was ranked as the 17th highest Screen Hero of all time, just above Robin Hood and Virgil Tibbs!
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