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Every still image I've seen pretty clearly shows a bullet hole in the front windshield. Close to the edge of the front, roughly where state registration tags usually go, but still the front. I'm sure some shots went through the side considering like 4 rounds were fired, but characterizing them all as being shot from the side does not seem fair.
Not an intentional characterization. The first shot indeed went through the front window. It's the subsequent shots that I think will be very difficult to justify as self defense. I know that there is a norm that cops 'mag dump' into suspects, which they then justify with the phrase 'I fired until the threat was eliminated' - which is the legal standard.
Problem is, that justification makes sense if you're talking about a guy who just pulled a gun or charged at you. It makes way less sense if the threat was a car, and you've just dodged out of the way of that car to the extent that subsequent shots then go through the side window. What is the justification for those subsequent shots? The shooter was no longer in danger. I really think those are going to be a major issue for the shooter, legally.
A sequence of 3 shots within a second are not going to be difficult to justify as self-defense. If the first is justified, the next two within a second are going to be justified. No one is required to shoot once and wait a few seconds to see what happened.
I just find it interesting as you're discovering what really happened the different facts don't seem to affect your opinion and instead you just find some other rationale why your initial opinion is still correct.
It’s not about ‘wait and see’, it’s about the fact that he is no longer in front of the vehicle.
To what are you referring?
the fact you didn't know the first shot went through the windshield proving he was in front of the vehicle when he shot 3 times within about a second
and so your motte position was 'sure, sure, maybe the first shot was fine, but what about the 2nd and 3rd shot .33 seconds later which went 6 inches to the right through the side window'
https://youtube.com/watch?v=K9CJY5p0xz4&t=16
He's pivoted more than 90 degrees since the first shot, and has pushed his gun forward almost to the point where it's within the vehicle through the side window -- there's some argument to be made that training/target fixation kicked in so he's not really culpable, but that argument is not "double-tap is standard procedure" nor "nobody could possibly have stopped shooting in such a short time".
the standard in self-defense scenarios is and should be what a reasonable person could believe in the situation; it's not a standard of perfection based on hindsight and 10 different camera angles
when you get to the point where you're (the general you) attempting to criticize/condemn someone because they fired 3 shots in a timeframe of about a second total claiming the shooter should have known and assessed after the first shot and within half a second that the potential threat scenario had completely changed and to not fire a half second later, while they're being hit by a car driving directly by them, we're at the point where I just don't believe they actually believe in self-defense and they're looking for any reason to condemn people when they actually use self-defense as a way to attack self-defense principles themselves and each of these are just arguments as soldiers
no one is required or should be required under the legal standard to judge each shot in a very tight sequence (again, about a second in total) of shots separately because this isn't how humans work because we have brains and muscles which just aren't this fast
the period in which lethal force would be justified is the period in which it's present and imminent and then a period of time after it factually ends to give a real human in the real world time to observe that, analyze it, and respond to it; I really struggle to believe people making these arguments have successfully thought about putting themselves in this scenario, think about just how quick 1 second is, and think to themselves, 'yeah sure I would have fired the first shot and it's justified, but I would have known to stop .33 seconds later as I was being hit by a car'
these sorts of arguments just come off to me as being only able to be made by people know they will never be in this scenario and they're using their spot on the sidelines to produce a standard which condemns most others
none of us would withstand such a standard and cowardice and inaction is our only defense, but someone actually does have to be in these situations
and as I wrote in another comment, there is yet another argument the cop would be justified to use lethal force in defense of others on the street from the fleeing felon who had just committed aggravated assault with a deadly weapon which she was still recklessly driving
edit: accidentally posted early and came in too hot and significant edited the above post, apologies
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I did know that.
This is the straw man of my position, yes.
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Particularly if it turns out that the first shot was non-fatal -- which actually seems kind of likely given the location of the hole + quickdraw; he might not have even hit her at all there.
If he doesn't exactly have self-defence for the shots through the window, this would leave him only with defense of others/the public -- which might fly for a normal cop in this situation with a normal (here meaning crazed out of his mind on liquor and drugs) fleeing suspect; preventing a dangerous high-speed chase, heat of the moment, etc.
In this case that seems like kind of a tough row to hoe.
Even with civilian shootings it's usually not necessary to justify each shot in a rapid sequence separately. (Whether the shots were in such a sequence was a point in the Bernhard Goetz case, IIRC)
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No. Once you establish the first shot is reasonable, the other shots within a second are also reasonable. It is a very fluid situation and LEO cannot be expected to assess within less than a second whether the threat has passed once they fire. If it was say 30 seconds later, sure. But asking them to within half a second continue to make these decisions is asking LEO to be superhuman.
Like shaken says, this is normally pretty ironclad because normally they are defending themselves from a guy with a gun etc who is hard to cross-off as a threat -- so continuing to shoot if he drops the gun or something isn't too bad.
This time, the car was clearly past him, and he had to actively turn his body to get the shot -- you could argue about target fixation or something, but based on the video I don't think it's an easy sell to a jury.
Well, yes and no. Again, very limited time. So that helps the LEO.
Second, if you think she was trying to hit you and only avoided causing serious harm because you were able to shimmy a bit out of the way, then the threat isn’t over after she misses you.
Maybe it's not over, (like, she might back up and have another go at you!) but it's no longer immediate.
Where are you going to draw the line on that? He had to pivot quite a bit to get the shot from the side, can he just keep tracking the target and shoot her in the back? It's a Glock, not a machine gun -- when you are no longer under immediate threat, you can just... not pull the trigger anymore.
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