Whether you are a regular Joe or a law enforcement officer, the legal legitimacy of armed self defense is a matter of perception. You are allowed to act on what you think you see, instead of what is actually going on.
As a result of mistaken perception, two men of three men taken hostage by another armed with a knife were shot by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies as they fled an apartment, because the three deputies thought that the second man escaping was the armed suspect.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department killed a man earlier this week, mistaking him for an armed assailant. John Winkler, 30, was actually a victim of the assailant. FULL STORY