[Itse]

Originally Posted by Zulu29

Where did I say he was a violent criminal? I'm saying I don't think he paid. Your jump to conclusions mat is out I see.

English needs a real passive form. I didn't mean you you.

And fearing for your life or "being scared" as you trivialized it is absolutely justification for defending yourself

I don't agree, and most legal systems in the western world say otherwise. Thing is, most legal systems try to steer away from stuff that's really hard to prove, such as whether or not someone was scared or angry. It's more about what actually happened, or in this case, what was the realistic level of threat based on what the accused knew and were there really no other options.

So for example, being scared of the big black kid is not an excuse, because from the point of the law he was just a big, unarmed kid and who was killed by a trained, armed professional, despite being of no danger to anyone before the officer made contact with him. The details only matter as to whether the officer should be convicted of murder or whatever "serious professional f***up" is in legalese. (Or something in between, obviously.)

Here's a small comparison on attitudes as represented by law:

In Finland, even if you were clearly under attack, you're not a professional and you're much smaller, if you had a gun or even just a knife and the other side was unarmed, it's extremely likely that you're going to get slapped with something along the lines of "manslaughter committed as exaggerated self-defense." (I don't know what would be the technical translation, it's a different legal system.)

Also, if you even kick someone when they're down, that's going from defense to offense and makes you instantly into a criminal. Shooting someone an extra time, that's likely a murder charge.

Basically, on this side of the world, it's really difficult to kill someone and not get convicted of at least something.


Let's compare what I've described to the American way:

...if that results in the aggressor dying then it's unfortunate.

Sure, we're trivializing things.