I missed another popular red herring in my earlier post: Namely, the claim that the officer in Minnesota was justified in opening fire, but that, rather than shooting to kill, he ought merely to have “shot the tires out” or “shot only once” or “shot to wound.”
Outside of the movies, this is not a thing. One is permitted to use one’s gun if one reasonably believes that one’s life is in danger, and, if one reasonably believes that one’s life is in danger, one shoots to kill. For good reason, officers are trained to shoot at the person who presents the threat, and, when doing so, to shoot at their center mass. To do otherwise is to risk shooting someone else, or to risk shooting a bystander, or to risk having the round ricochet wildly off a hard substance (like, say, a metal car). There is no circumstance in which an officer — or a civilian, for that matter — is allowed to use a gun for self-defense, but only sort of. That is a TV trope, not a real-world rule.
As for the idea that the first shot was justified but the subsequent shots were not? That, too, is ridiculous. If a minute had elapsed between shots, that would be one thing. In that case, the second shot would be part of a separate incident, with a fresh risk calculation and a separate set of details. But, here, the second and third shots were part of the same moment that justified the first. Naturally, it is entirely unworkable to expect a person who fears for his life to distinguish between the need for a first, second, or third shot when those shots are all fired within a few seconds of one another. As such, the case against the second and third shots in this circumstance is also the case against the first. If that was legitimate, so were the others. If it was illegitimate, the others were as well.