Detectives sometimes go overboard

In the episode of Richard Diamond entitled "Joyce Wallace," he is hired by a performer to protect her because attempts have been made on her life. During the show, while Diamond is in her apartment, a bouquet of roses arrives from her estranged husband, as happens every week. This time, however, there is a snake in the bouquet. She becomes hysterical, and Diamond pulls out his gun and fires three bullets at the snake. This probably was a very expensive apartment, and the snake (which was not poisonous) could have been disposed of by stepping on it, dropping some object on it, etc. But no! Diamond has to haul out his .38 and blast away. No mention is ever made of the damage done to the apartment, who will pay for it, not any complaints from other apartment dwellers in adjoining units where the bullets presumably penetrated. It is all just accepted matter-of-factly as what anyone would have done.