OldMarksman
Staff
But under the laws in most jurisdictions, who initiated the conflict does matter--a great deal.According to a number of defense laws, it doesn't matter who struck the first blow, when one person is being injured by another to the extent of risk for life or serious injury, justified defense is present.
There are potentially extenuating circumstances, but they require assessment and judgment to be made under very stressful circumstances in a very short time.
Speaking here only on the subject of third party intervention, most knowledgeable experts advise that intervention should very rarely be attempted by someone who did not actually know what had transpired from the beginning, and the should probably be done only by persons who actually knew the apparent "victims".
That is excellent advice.
We have the benefit of a high quality video recording here that we can view one and over from a point in time the precedes the initiation of the confrontation.
Persons on scene would not have that.
A couple of weeks ago, a police officer in our area shot an off-duty officer at a crime scene. He was missing a very key piece of information.
In the past few years, there have been numerous accounts of third party interventions here and on other boards that involved misinterpretation of what seemed to be clear facts.
Not good.
You will not find me using deadly force to intervene in any situation of which I was not fully knowledgeable.
Or any one of the knowledgeable and trained citizens with whom I regularly associate.
In this incident, in Texas, where it is sometimes permissible to draw when conditions justifying the actual use of deadly force do not exist? If I had seen everything that we now we see on the video?
Well, I cannot say for sure, but I can certainly see myself drawing a firearm and loudly issuing a couple of commands, after the man was on the ground and being kicked and apparently unable to defend himself..
After I had looked around for possible accomplices.