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EDIT: To give this post more substance, I'm going to add a breakdown that I wrote for a reply further down. This is a timeline of events as I see them, which seems to demonstrate that the woman threw the pot of boiling water at the officers prior to being shot:
Tmestamps are from this video if you want to check it yourself: https://youtube.com/watch?v=U2rMB2fYjuY&rco=1&ab_channel=PoliceActivity
10:37: She clearly takes both hands off the pot and raises them above her head.
10:38: She crouches behind the counter. The pot is visible on the stove. She is no longer holding the pot.
The bodycam is briefly blocked by the officer's arm.
10:40: She is now standing up again and she seems to have picked the pot back up and is now hoisting it over her head. To repeat, she put the pot down, crouched down, took cover, stood back up, and then picked the pot back up again, holding it above her head. I cannot imagine any reason she would have for hoisting a pot of boiling water over her head except to throw it.
also 10:40: The pot leaves her hands. Roughly simultaneously, the officer shoots her. It's hard to tell the exact timeline of events, except...
10:41: The pot lands on the chair in front of her. For this to happen, it must have had considerable forward momentum. It looks to me like she had at least begun to throw the pot when the bullet connected. If not then it should have landed on top of her, not on the chair in front of her.
It's possible (again, hard to break down this 1-second period from Youtube footage) that the cop interrupted her throw by shooting her, which means it quite possibly could have had more momentum if he hadn't shot her. If so, it's possible that if he hadn't shot her it would have hit him and inflicted life-ruining burns. It's also possible he didn't shoot until after she completed her throw, in which case it wouldn't have hit him regardless. Either way, it's clear that she had attempted to inflict life-ruining injuries on him at the time she was shot.
Original unedited post begins here.
Since there seems to be a lot of back-and-forth on this point I want to add my take to what I see as the correct side. I watched the video in slow motion, and this woman clearly tried to attack the cops with boiling water. Boiling water is extremely dangerous and is capable of inflicting permanent disfiguring injuries. The woman attacked the cops before any shots were fired, and that makes the shots justified. Her death was her own fault.
Once you attack someone in a manner that could plausibly inflict a serious injury, they are justified in immediately killing you. Yes even if they're a cop. Them that take the sword shall perish by the sword.
It bothers me a lot that some people seem to expect cops to de-escalate after they've already been attacked. That's ridiculous. Cops aren't Superman, they can't just stand there taking unlimited punishment until their attackers run out of steam and then execute a flawless nonlethal takedown. Cops are fragile human beings. Any attack could kill or cripple them. Every weapon is a deadly weapon.
I would rather see ten guilty people gunned down by cops than one innocent person injured. There should be zero tolerance for any aggression of any kind, ever, no exceptions, the end.
Was the gun pointed at her face before she made any actions that could be considered threatening by a reasonable person? They inarguably suggested she go to go to the fully loaded pot, which adds a wrinkle. However, I have heard that in revival churches saying "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus" precedes throwing water. I have no idea how true this is.
AFAIKT, the cop said "I'll shoot you in the fucking face", then he points a gun at her face, only then does she start to panic/ duck cover, then grabs the pot, then the cop advances, then she throws boiling water, and finally she is shot.
The trial will be interesting. I think the defense can weave a narrative of a credible verbal threat of physical harm, then not obeying commands (perhaps for the second time), then the assailant is shot in the middle of an attack. The prosecution will tell a story about directing her towards the pot, then telling her to get away from it, she demurs, then cops threaten to kill her and dramatically escalate, and she is starts reasonably fearing for her life.
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