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The officer did shoot in self defense. Rayshard shot the taser as he was running away. The officer when seeing the taser being pointed at him immediately dropped his own and drew his sidearm and fired. By that time (under half a second) the taser had fired at him and RB had turned back around with the taser still in his hand. Taser X2s have two shots instead of one, so he was still armed with a deadly weapon according to GA law. He showed utter disregard for the life of the officer whom he fired at and escalated the situation to deadly force. He escalated the situation from a simple and cordial DUI arrest to deadly force because he didn’t want to go back to jail for a parole violation.

From everything I have seen the cop was justified by law. Still a shitty situation but this smells of politics by the DA.

Edit: forgot to mention that Tennessee vs Garner established that officers have justification to use deadly force to stop someone fleeing who is a deadly danger to the public.

>>tomsch+(OP)
Continuing to chase and shooting RB in the back contradicts the claim of self defense. At any time, the officer could have stopped the immediate chase and ended the confrontation. This would have been the prudent thing to do, given that they had his ID (and his car), and the two officers hadn't recovered from being overwhelmed.

This is a good example of why responding officers shouldn't carry firearms or even tasers on their person - they're too quick to keep escalating like they see on TV. If a suspect violently escapes arrest, then send in a larger armed crew with a deliberate plan.

re your addition: Seems like a decision that enables bad policing. Nothing about the situation makes it seem like RB was actually a danger to the public, but the police will push that justification all day long to legitimize what was essentially a personal ego escalation.

>>mindsl+R1
You’re arguing the morality not the legality. I’m arguing the latter, specifically related to the DA in this case bringing up charges against and officer where by law he seems more than covered. That’s it.

>>tomsch+qe
The morality is important, as we're talking about whether to prosecute and legal arguments can be made both ways. As I said, I do not agree that a person stealing a taser constitutes a deadly danger to the public. Even if the taser is considered a deadly weapon, there was no demonstrated intent to attack random people.

As this is not a clear cut case of justifiable homicide, the right thing to do is let a court sort it out. If the courts are too slow and expensive, welcome to another broken aspect of the criminal justice system that is in dire need of reform!