TexasCHLforum.com

Jim Beaux wrote: ↑Thu Jul 07, 2022 5:40 pm IMO There is not a lot of clarity as to what happened, but it appears the victim made provocative contact with the shooter. In Texas this is assault/offensive touch.

PENAL CODE

TITLE 5. OFFENSES AGAINST THE PERSON

CHAPTER 22. ASSAULTIVE OFFENSES

Sec. 22.01. ASSAULT. (a) A person commits an offense if the person:
(1) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to another, including the person's spouse;
(2) intentionally or knowingly threatens another with imminent bodily injury, including the person's spouse; or
(3) intentionally or knowingly causes physical contact with another when the person knows or should reasonably believe that the other will regard the contact as offensive or provocative.

https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/SOTW ... /PE.22.htm

I agree that he appears to have poked the shooter, which, under Texas law, is a simple assault or possibly and assault bodily injury (if the shooter felt any pain at all, it would be bodily injury). It is also debatable that, under Texas law, the man entered the shooter's occupied vehicle. Our current law, in Chapter 9, does not define "enter" though in other chapters (30 for example), it includes any portion of the body. Both of these under our law would justify using force to defend yourself.

But, under 9.32, neither of these justify deadly force being used. It requires the attacker to be about to use unlawful deadly force or commit a list of crime, none of which is assault or even aggravated assault. From the video, even if the deceased is the initiator of the argument, I do not believe the shooting would be justified in Texas. I find it hard to believe Illinois has easier laws justifying shooting than Texas does.

This does not look defensible to me, but there is another factor that may make it so. I can see where reaching into the car is an attack, especially if you don't know what he is reaching for. Is he going to hit the driver, poke him (which I don't understand but is possible), strangle him, or punch him?. Given that, then it is possible that this is when the driver pulled his weapon and made the decision to fire. Studies at the Force Science Institute show that once your mind makes that decision, it is hard to stop the body from acting. The man sees the gun coming up and reacts by pulling back butt he driver is already raising the gun to fire. By the time his mind realizes the man is pulling back and breaking away, his hand has brought up the gun and is firing. This makes it look worse on the video than it was at the time the driver decided to shoot.

One of the premises of the studies was to see why police officers were shooting people in the back when they said they were attacking. Videos of several people were made and show this delay in reaction time. It is a very interesting field of study to me, especially the action and reaction time parts. We all already know that action beats reaction but what about reacting to the reaction?