There are two ways to answer this question. First, from official story of the guards, Tom was trying to escape. They stated that he was fast, and if he had two good arms he would have escaped. They also stated that they first shot into the air a few times to warn him, but that these shots were not heeded. This storyline says that Tom did not listen and that he was possibly dangerous. The point is that the shots were warranted.
The other way way to answer this question is to underline the racist nature of the guards. Tom was not a human being with rights, but another black man. In their eyes, the world with one less black man was a better world. Here is what Atticus says:
“Depends on how you look at it,” he said. “What was one Negro, more or less, among two hundred of ‘em? He wasn’t Tom to them, he was an escaping prisoner.”
As a reader it is hard not to view racism all over the place.
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