Comment by zahlman

You assume the consequent with your language; a dead person is not necessarily a "brick on the accelerator"; and human reaction time is a thing. Officers are expected to make decisions in the moment that are reasonable given the totality of circumstances up to that point, without the benefit of hindsight. The decision to shoot was clearly made before the SUV could at all be said to be "getting away"; if you're a trained LEO (or even just someone with a firearm and specific self-defense training) you are going to fire multiple shots.

Regardless of Good's intent (which is irrelevant to the self-defense case), at the moment the vehicle was put into drive, it was clearly pointed straight at the officer (after straightening out from the first point of the two-point turn) and only began turning later. And she was being counseled to "drive, baby, drive", which does not exactly suggest being careful. The fact that this posed a serious threat meeting the standard for self-defense is pretty easy to argue, especially given that he actually was struck by the vehicle.

The left front wheel of the SUV can be seen (in the video from behind) to spin in place for a moment on an icy road; it's unclear exactly what the officer perceived in that moment, but it could very easily be argued that the officer reasonably believed he could prevent the car from moving forward by shooting, and by the time it was moving forward it was too late. Again, human reaction time is a thing.