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It's not legally permissible to respond to an assault with a deadly weapon with lethal force if there is no threat to bodily harm. Nor is it necessarily permissible if you provoked the situation. I can't run onto the tarmac of an airport and start shooting down landing aircraft with artillery because of my, at that point, reasonable fear that a plane landing on top of me is a danger to my life. It doesn't matter if I don't have time to get out of the way by the time the plane is about to land. It's my fault for putting myself in that situation. There are limits to what I can do to create a dangerous situation for myself that leave lethal force as the only option to save my life.
He knew or should have known that, if a car was driving towards him, he would shoot and kill the driver, yet chose to stand in front of a moving car. Then when the car did appear to be driving towards him, he failed to take the opportunity to get out of the way and instead stood his ground, drew his weapon, and then leaned towards the car as it turned away and fired at the moment the car brushed past him. Then he fired two more shots as the car drove away from him.
Even if we grant that the car was a deadly threat, how does that excuse firing twice after it was no longer a threat? How can even the first shot be justified when he knew or should have known that the killing not have stopped the car?
You have a right to kill someone if it is necessary to protect yourself. If shooting her didn't help him, then he had no right to do it.
Assault with a deadly weapon is by definition a threat of bodily harm! That's what the word "deadly" means!
Placing someone under arrest is not grounds for that person to assault a police officer, no matter how much that person feels they have been provoked, because police are legally entitled to arrest lawbreakers.
Correct, the law permits you to resist an offense that you reasonably believe exposes you to death or great bodily harm. Landing an aircraft is not an offense. Intentionally driving a car into a police officer is an offense.
The car did not move until he had already been in front of it for several seconds, and he was seen by the driver (thanks to new footage released today). He did not place himself in front of a moving vehicle. You are straight-up lying here.
Because he is a human being and human beings do not process information instantly. The three shots were all fired within half a second, well within the amount of time it actually takes a human being to process a change in the situation. He stopped firing when he realized the threat had passed. Courts do not require independent legal justification for multiple shots within a small amount of time for this reason, the three shots would be treated as a single event in court because to a human being, they are.
Because the law says you are permitted to use lethal force to resist an offense you reasonably believe exposes you to death or great bodily harm. It does not say "unless a guy on the internet with the ability to watch the video in slow motion thinks it wouldn't have helped anyway." The law does not require you to spend what you reasonably believe may be your last moments on earth basing your decision to resist your death on whether it in retrospect might be futile or not. It permits you to resist by whatever means are available to you.
No, you a permitted to kill someone to resist an offense which you reasonably believe exposes you to death or great bodily harm. The wording matters quite a bit.
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There was obviously a threat of bodily harm here. He was hit. It is true he was not gravely injured, but that was accident; he could not know it at the time. Same as if she pulled a gun and fired it but only winged him.
The car was going like 5 km/h and already turned mostly away from him when he started shooting. That isn't a threat of bodily harm. He wasn't really hit so much as brushed against because he chose to lean towards the car to keep his gun in front of the windshield so that he could get a shot.
Even if there was some risk to him, you're ignore several crucial elements. First of all, it's not like pulling a gun because it was clear that she wasn't trying to hit him. He also caused the dangerous situation by walking out into the middle of the street in front of a moving car and then suddenly stopping the moment she was about to drive away. He was clearly trying to position himself between her and her escape route.
Finally, shooting her had no chance of protecting him from getting hit. So it was an entirely gratuitious killing. Standing there and pulling out his gun instead moving out of the way increased the risk to himself. It didn't decrease it.
Even she were threatening him, killing someone in a way that increases rather than decreases the threat is not self-defence. Self-defence actually requires defence, not just gratuitous killing.
The car was certainly going faster than 5km/h.
Ah, yes, "mostly". Not enough to, you know, not hit him.
Clear to who? Certainly not to him.
He did no such thing. He was walking in street to the right of the stationary car's forward path when she started to make a K-turn, backing up and turning to point the nose of the car at him, then going forward. At which point he pulled the gun. As it turns out she kept turning, but he didn't know she would at the time.
I don't think you can tell from the videos whether he was hit. It looks like he leans towards the car as it approaches him and reaches out with his left hand. Then it pushes his left hand toward his chest and he is either pushed or pushes away.
It was enough not to hit him because he could have gotten out of the way instead of staying where he was in order to pull out his gun and then start moving.
Either way, this is beside the point. If he was hit, he didn't suffer severe bodily injure and I don't think it's reasonable to think that was a possibility. The car was moving slowly and it was at worst a glancing blow. You can't kill someone over that.
We don't know his state of mind. What matters is what should have been clear to him.
How does that contradict what I said? The car was moving and he walked in front of it. He should not have done that. When she started backing up, he was not in front of the car. He kept walking and then got in front of the car and then when she stopped, he stopped in front of the driver. After making the mistake of walking front of the moving car, he then had an opportunity to keep walking to get out of the way. He chose to stop right in the way and turn and face her.
Then when she started moving, he had the opportunity to move to his right. Instead, he chose to pointlessly draw his gun.
He should have assumed that she would. At that point, he didn't have the right to go to such precautionary lengths to save his life, because he created the dangerous situation and needed to give her the benefit of the doubt and shooting her never had any possiblity of eliminating the threat.
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