[fabsroman]

Wow, this is a tough one not knowing all the facts. I can tell you that I do have nightmares of LEO's that are out to get me, but I also know plenty of LEO's that are nice guys. I have run into nice LEO's and bad LEO's; however, none have ever drawn a gun on me.

The shot to the head was definitely over the top and he deserved time for that. The self defense issue is one that goes to state of mind. The only person that really know what was going through Claude's head when he pulled the trigger was Claude himself. A bunch of circumstantial evidence was probably used to justify the self defense motive.

Whether or not the LEO's "got what they deserve" depends on what they were actually thinking of doing. Maybe they were drawing weapons to protect themselves and actually had no intention of killing Claude. Of course, we will never know what they were thinking. However, I have a pretty good guess about what the second LEO was thinking. He was probably thinking "Holy Crap this guy is going to kill me" and he instinctively tried to draw his weapon. If somebody shot the guy next to me and I was with that guy, I think I would be pretty afraid of losing my own life.

These situations suck. I wish we were able to read people's minds and talk to the dead. Granted, a lie detector test of Claude might be nice, but they can't be introduced into evidence anyway so it wouldn't have helped with the trial.

Let's hope that this guy learned his lesson by losing 22 years of his life in a prison. 22 years that he will never get back. Kind of ironic that 22 years matches the caliber bullet used to shoot the officers in the head. Anyway, I hope that he doesn't kill anybody else and actually stays out of trouble. Only time will tell.