Posted by JustinJ: It seems safe to assume that stopping an execution is the right thing.
Sure. What is not safe to assume is that he was stopping an execution. See Post #10. Skribs reiterated the same thing in Post #23:
Like I said in post 10, if I had shot someone and he was on the ground, I'd keep my pistol on him. If he looks to be a threat again, I'd shoot until he stops again. That might look, to you, like I was preparing to execute him.
It also seems safe to assume that if the shot man had a gun to begin with it would have been drawn a long time before the actor interceded.
No, not even remotely.
"As he pulled his SUV into a parking slot on the north side of the store, he noticed two men arguing closer to the entrance, then saw one of the men pull out a pistol and start shooting."
That's what he "saw". That may not have been what happened. Did he have knowledge of what had led up to the apparent argument? Could he have missed a furtive movement that the shooter reasonably interpreted as reaching for a weapon?
Obviously, he
thought he saw a criminal act. He could just as easily have seen a lawful act of self defense. Similar witness testimony from persons who were convinced about what they saw and heard have proved problematical in cases involving defense of justification.*
Skribs put it this way in Post #23:
The MOG (man on ground) could have attacked the other person in the argument in a manner not seen by the defender. For example, he may have pulled a knife, which prompted the man with the gun to open fire. Unless you can see everything clearly, it is hard to determine who is attacking and who is defending.
Granted, we don't have a whole lot of information to go on from the article. ... From the way it reads, though, we have no way of knowing whether the gunman was defending himself or attacking up until he starts on his CCW ramble and leaves.
That's all reason to not intervene, and to not risk committing a felony by drawing a firearm when deadly force is not justified.
But for the sake of discussion, let's assume for a moment that our hero somehow did possess sufficient knowledge to reasonably believe that he was intervening to protect an innocent victim from a violent criminal actor.
What in the
world would lead him to think for even a moment that standing there with gun in hand would do anything other than get him shot?
In risk management, there are risks, and there are issues. The near certainty that a criminal who has shot someone will shoot any other immediate threats makes this one an issue.
And stepping away from our momentary assumption of complete knowledge, if it turns out that what was seen was
not a criminal act, we
still have a
very high risk of defensive fire (most probably lawful, by the way),
and the fact that drawing the gun would constitute a crime.
________
*If you want to learn more about that, there is an incident in the witness psychology section of MAG-20 in which just such a case is described and analyzed.