Was the fear reasonable when the guy backed off from physical distance ? Was the fear credible when there were dozens of other people around , including police ? That old fat guy wasn't going to do much physical harm prior to the police arriving on the scene which was within seconds - and everyone in the building knew they were there.
I don't have all the facts. My assertion is more about the law. His conviction will based on if fear of personal harm that justified deadly force was reasonable.
That is the key question whether it's reasonable. Again I have no problem saying that Keltner did assault Dollof both from the slap and the mace but is lethal force reasonably appropriate to that? The fear of escalation goes to escalation to what? The justification of lethal force is to counter a lethal threat. So far nothing I've seen shows that what Keltner was doing could be considered obviously escalating to lethal force.
This is where self-defense get's subjective. Dollof's defense will obviously be that he feared for his life. Just stating you were afraid isn't enough though as the key is what does the prosecutor and later jury consider reasonable? If someone pushed me and I killed him I certainly might be fearful that the person pushing me was going to escalate but it will be hard to argue that it was a reasonable response.
It is not just his life, but the life of the person he is guarding. He can not retreat because he is there to protect someone as well.
It is not just to counter a lethal threat it is also to counter reasonable fear of serious bodily injury. Just read the law dude.
~10-15 feet between you and an "assailant armed with a can of mace" and you have him at gunpoint. You tell me who should be fearful ?
Held him at gunpoint? Da****? How do you hold somebody at gunpoint when you have bear mace in your eyes? You are not even trying to make sense now.
That's not the right question that should be asked. The question is what was the purpose of spraying mace? If it was to render him unable to defend himself or the person he was there to guard, then that is assault with a deadly weapon as the mace is a conduit to further violence. That's why it's not just about the shooter but the shooter and the person they were guarding. If you go up to a cop and spray them with mace, you might get shot, do you agree? You say that because of the mace the cloud is this there and so he can't go in and attack him. But it's not clear A) how long the mace cloud is there preventing an attack, and B) whether he would go after the cameraman who is now defenseless.
Again that's speculative but I will say in this situation not likely. If you spray a cloud of mace at someone and then try to disarm them you will mace yourself. Further I find this argument very problematic because that would justify nearly every LEO shooting on the basis where the suspect tries to fight, whether they try to reach for the LEO's gun or not, they could knock them out and take their gun. In otherwords it's not the immediate threat but the follow on threat that might happen next.
Except by definition if the mace cloud disperses that would also give Dollof and others enough time to recover and/or escape. Also I can see that few people here have much experience with mace.
Once again you are acting like these people have a checklist to go through before the action and you can let the spray dissipate some or the guy getting sprayed can move out of that area due to panic. I can play these what ifs games all day if I wanted, all of your arguments are speculative and don't matter because it's what the shooter reasonably thought and if a jury can certainly be swayed to think the mace could incapacitate him, I mean that's what mace is for. I am not saying this shooting was justified and I don't agree with stand your ground laws but its not crazy to think what would happen if a guy who already slapped me could do much worse after he sprayed mace into my eyes. I am just going by the extremely murky guidelines of reasonably thought. For some reason you seem to be dismissing that out of hand or seem to be arguing that the only factor is if the mace would do bodily harm. The mace sprayer is the immediate threat not the actual mace and if somebody has already slapped you what why would you think the mace is the only actual threat, the mace spraying is not in a vacuum. Come on RK that makes no sense.
Just because you keep asking me that does not mean you can keep ducking my questions. For the record I don't think deadly force is justified is most things, where you not arguing that deadly force was justified by homeowner because the girl stole the Trump sign?
I am starting to see why you and Fisher are sworn enemies. You can be a bit obtuse. And no the would not have time because he sprayed it in their face.
It doesn't matter if by definition mace would disperse after x amount of time. What matters is what a reasonable person would expect to happen next. No, I'm not an expert in how mace works but I have the impression that it will blind me for a period of time running into the minutes. Being blind certainly makes me vulnerable - making it hard to retreat, to see what is going on, and to defend myself. Is it not reasonable for most people to fear getting maced by someone who is not acting in self-defense but in a hostile context? The guy was trying to attack the camera man. The guard interfered and put his arm in between them. The guy then struck him and attempted to mace him. Presumably a case can be made that once maced the guard would not be able to defend the cameraman. Not saying whether that is rooted in the reality of how mace works. But context to the situation and how the shooter should reasonable assess the situation and what their choices were are critical.
