Except this isn’t just a “what if” hypothetical, it’s a specific instance with actual facts at issue. It is the scenario the OP chose.
It should be relevant that rioters and protestors in the past who have pulled people from cars often begin beating them. Mobs are dangerous, and people die in mob violence all the time.
The guy might have been a dick, and he might have been acting like one before the video started. But that doesn’t justify mob violence, or negate his right to self defense if he thought his life was truly in danger.
Reginald Denny suffered life threatening injuries and permanent damage after being pulled from his truck and beaten by rioters. Just a couple of days ago in Buffalo rioters pulled a driver out of his car and kicked and beat him.
So yes, if you find yourself in the middle of a mob and they are trying to drag you out of your car, you have a reasonable expectation of serious bodily harm or death.
This new trend of people refusing to stop for protestors is likely the result of how common it is to hear about people who do stop having their cars vandalized and their lives threatened.
Well I don’t imagine that a mob will pull a person from their car in order to hug them. 
Of course you are in danger if a mob tries to pull you from your car. What do you expect would happen next?
The last couple posts read as if the driver and his car just haplessly materialized within he middle, of a crowd, having no say or agency in the matter. That’s not what it looks like to me.
I quoted the relevant portion of Washington’s self-defense law up thread. The only question in my mind, where legality is concerned, is who committed the first felony. It’s by no means a forgone conclusion that that was the protesters the guy decided to drive into the middle of.
You realize that you can apply that standard to just about every video of someone being brutalized by a mob.
You are blaming the victim with no evidence, because you hope it’s true that he committed some sort of crime before the video started, and the mob was just a bunch of good samaritans trying to hold him for the cops.
But we have zero evidence of ahything like that. It looks to me like some protestors tried to block the road, he tried to go around/through them (without hurting anyone, apparently), then he got trapped by a barricade and the mob descended on him.
He might have made a poor judgement call, but so does a woman who chooses to walk through a bad neighborhood in a miniskirt. But if she gefs raped, it’s pretty obnoxious to blame the victim for her choice in fashion, even while acknowledging that it wasn’t a smart thing to do. The blame falls squarely on the rapist.
This is better suited to IMHO than General Questions.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
We have zero evidence of anything at this point, except that the man in the car shot the guy who was reaching into the car. The question is, did the man reaching in the car have a right under the law to do so? This has nothing to do with a hypothetical scenario of “what might happen after” and everything to do with who was committing the violent felony, and who was trying to stop someone from committing a violent felony. If the guy in the car was threatening protesters with his car, that’s assault, maybe even attempted murder. People get to respond to that to try and stop him score he kills someone.
And I want to note I said “if” there. That’s all.
The hypothetical that started off this discussion is poorly framed given the example provided because there is so much more at issue than just someone walking up to a driver minding his own business and trying to pull him out of the car.
I would not for a moment jump to “gosh, that woman exercised poor judgment” or anything like that, in part because I don’t see what a miniskirt has to do with it unless you think that the men in a “bad neighborhood” are apt to be a bunch of would-be animal rapist thugs who would be triggered by a miniskirt. But I suppose it’s telling on several accounts that you consider that a good comparison.
And how, exactly, do you propose our driver determine, in the seconds he has to decide, whether his apparent attacker might be attempting a lawful citizen’s arrest or merely offering to kill/maim him for sport or profit?
Are you asking how the driver was supposed to know that he (the driver) was being a threatening jerk at best, and a violent felon at worst?
And pondering how many blows to the head he should absorb while deciding, as other members of an apparently angry mob came closer to his vehicle.
If he was, indeed, the aggressor (as prosecutors allege), then it’s not really his place to decide, except in so far as he may choose to surrender without a fight. But if he doesn’t, it’s for the people he threatened to decide what it might reasonably take to subdue him and prevent him from causing injury to others, and it’s for the police and the courts to decide if they went too far.
Of note, since he (the driver with the gun) apparently didn’t see eye to eye with the man who tried to stop him and chose to contest the issue with a gun, he (again, the guy with the car and the gun) has been arrested and charged with first degree assault (a felony). Regardless of the outcome, he’s certainly “no angel,” having been previously convicted of DUI and 4th degree assault.
Many cases revolve around the “reasonable person” doctrine. You’re driving early in the morning and pass a motel with a sign “free breakfast”… Can you pull in and belly up to the buffet? No, despite the contract implied by the sign. A judge would rule that a “reasonable person” would understand that the chow is free only to paying guests.
It should also be relevant that people who drove their cars at protesters in the past did so deliberately to murder them.
What an odious comparison.
That sounds about right.
Driver went down there looking for some action, mouthed off, woke up, tried to take off, got blocked, which is when the other guy caught up to him.
So driver is to blame for putting events in motion, but you’re not required to let yourself get killed either.
Not the same as pick-a-fight-then-stand-your-ground. He was trying to get away and couldn’t. He might get off because of that.
Except the car was actually stopped at the time. The driver, at the time the shooting occurred, did not present an immediate threat. Indeed, he chose to bring his car to a controlled stop when confronted by protesters. The shooting victim may plausibly claim that earlier (when he was clinging to the side of the moving car) he was trying to prevent a run-down - but that claim is not plausible when the car has stopped. In addition to the guy reaching into the car, numerous other protesters had surrounded the vehicle and begin pounding and kicking it. The totality of circumstances suggested that a vigorous, potentially fatal beatdown of the driver at the hands of an angry, out-of-control mob was imminent.
That’s what it took to get the angry mob to back away to a satisfactory standoff distance. Once everybody backed off, he lowered his weapon, walked away…and turned himself into the police station.
What I saw was him charging into and among the crowd, not trying to get them to back away. I am not aware of what happened after that (i.e., turning himself in).
If the OP wants a specific assessment of that specific situation (rather than holding it up as an example for a more general question) then he must also take into account everything about the context and not just isolate 3 seconds of one video. I do not know how the courts view these types of events but the driver’s behavior prior to the man’s reaching into his car would certainly be relevant as to who is threatening whom.
I was simply making a point about blaming the victim. Of course women have a right to wear whatever they want, but that didn’t stop a lot of assholes in the past from saying things lkke, “Well, of course rape is wrong, but why did she have to wear a miniskirt? That’s just inviting teouble!”
That kind of attitude is not far from, “Ok, I can see the mob damaging his car and threatening him, but what did he do to encourage that? Maybe he threatened them or was a jerk before the camera footage starts.”
So, you equate wearing a mini-skirt with making threats?