The example today is from an article in the Daily Mail entitled, "South Carolina gas store owner, 58, is charged with murder for shooting armed teen Cyrus Carmack-Belton, 14, in the back because he thought he'd stolen bottled water." The headline is wrong: the owner didn't shoot sweet, innocent Cyrus in the back because he thought Cyrus had stolen water, but because Cyrus was armed with a handgun. Nevertheless, that did not stop the owner, Rick Chow, from being charged with murder.
The basic story is that Cyrus went into the convenience store owned by Chow located in Columbia, South Carolina. Chow and his son thought Cyrus had shoplifted a bottle of water and confronted him about it, which resulted in Cyrus fleeing the store with Chow's son in hot pursuit and Chow following up behind. Chow's son shouted out that Cyrus had a gun after which Chow shot Cyrus, striking him in the back and killing him. I'm sure that Chow shot because he thought that Cyrus was going to harm his son.
Police are seemingly incurious why 14-year old Cyrus had a gun, although they were quick to point out that he had not, in fact, stolen any water. The local black community was similarly swift in organizing to vandalize and generally destroy Chow's business.
We have seen instances where there were perfectly legitimate reasons why a suspect might get shot in the back, including the suspect shooting at an armed defender while running away or simply due to the slight delay in mental processing between acquiring a target and shooting which allowed the suspect enough time to turn and present his back to the armed defender between the time the defender decided to take the shot and when the shot actually went off. We don't have enough information to determine if either might be the case here. But that is neither here nor there because, even if it were the case, the shooting occurred after the suspect had exited the store.
Which brings me to the self-defense tip for today: if the suspect is running away, just let them go. If you want a more legalistic analysis, it is this: if the suspect is running away from you--left the building in this case--he (or she) is no longer an imminent threat.
There is obviously the complicating factor of Chow's son chasing the suspect and the possibility that Cyrus might have shot Chow's son. The pedantic will be able to come up with additional exceptions--e.g., a kidnapper making off with one of your kids. But as a general rule, when a criminal runs off it is like dropping your keys in molten lava: you just have to let them go.
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