Reply #26: If I were the cop on the scene, I would want to know why [View All]

[kenny blankenship]

chopping off the dude's hand wasn't sufficient to end the situation where the student felt his life was in danger.

Now, it could be that it was dark and the student could not see that the hand was on the floor. But I'm pretty sure the intruder reacted to the loss of the hand. The question is should the student have interpreted that reaction as "threat neutralized" or was an interpretation of "threat continuing" reasonable under the circumstances. A guy I know who's worked some construction described to me "the hopping dance" that co-workers who have just lost a finger or two to a power tool typically do. Maybe the student saw this hopping dance up close, and interpreted it as a chaotic attack, not knowing he had lopped off the intruder's hand.

Whenever you kill someone you're going to be asked a lot of hard questions from people who're not inclined to believe you.