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Notes -
I find "How far could she have thrown the pot?" questions kind of irrelevant. This is exactly the sort of thing we see after incidents like this where everyone suddenly becomes an expert on guns, knives, sprinting speeds, or the ability of old ladies to throw pots of hot water and how much damage hot water can do. It's all useless because there are too many variables and no one is actually making those calculations in the moment.
Like, let's stipulate that in theory she was physically capable of throwing the pot far enough to splash the cops. Still not buying that this was justification for them to react the way she did.
The cops sure as hell should be. Whether one is in reasonable fear of grave bodily harm depends on that.
If we accept that she was capable of and appeared to be about to throw the pot far enough to douse them (not just splash them) with the boiling (or just off-boil) water, they have a good case for self-defense.
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