re: Police in Wash. Shoot Man Running From them with a rock in his hands.

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"He punched me in the stomach then stood over me, so I shot him! I felt threatened! Granted I slapped his wife's arse first, but whatever...."

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Walk down an alley, someone punches you in the face and starts kicking you. What do you do? Yell and hope someone hears you? Or do you get out a gun if you have one and shoot your attacker? Oh no that would be too much according to you.

Don't punch someone if you don't want to deal with the repercussions. Some might feel their life is threatened. Who are you to say that they didn't feel their life was in danger if someone randomly comes up and assaults them?

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You really don't see the danger in leaving up to individual interpretation?

"He punched me in the stomach then stood over me, so I shot him! I felt threatened! Granted I slapped his wife's arse first, but whatever...."

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I think most laws include a reasonableness requirement, that those feelings or beliefs of being threatened be reasonable. It is supposed to make it a more objective test instead of a subjective test of what that particular person felt. That persons belief of a threat is evidence, but not determinative of the issue. In other words, in the totality of the circumstances, was that person's belief reasonable. So just saying you felt threatened is not enough.

The thing you see when officers are involved is that juries are very typically going to defer to the officer's subjective belief, whether it was reasonable or not.