Cuts Crooked, forgive me, but 30 years as a LEO makes your testimony automatically biased in favor of a fellow LEO, just as mine is biased in favor of military in all things.
Someone who is not a veteran LE may look at this situation and wonder at what point in the incident did he demonstrate "means". Until means are established, all you have is verbalizing a threat, and I've been through enough UCMJ proceedings on that to know the evidentiary requirements necessary to elevate it from a hothead to a menace. He could just as easily have been reaching for a phone to call his lawyer, or the baby's bottle, as a weapon.
And as you say, anyone with 6 confirmed career line of duty shootings in this day and age would be viewed with suspicion until cleared by a review board. That he was put back into rotation indicates he met departmental requirements, sure. But folks who have pulled the trigger are more comfortable doing it again; same issue in my line of work. Doesn't make them evil, just calls into question their ability to make an objective determination to abstain from escalation.
And as you know, just because it gets cleared in court does not make it a righteous shoot ... I've counseled way too many shooters to buy that.
