Think of the threads about finding an intruder in your home, and dropping the hammer on him because of the possible threat to you and yours.
There's a big difference in shooting an intruder in my home (if he does not live in my house and has forcibly entered, then I am explicity allowed by Georgia statute to use deadly forcer if I believe it to be necessary to prevent the commission of further felonies) and shooting someone in public after they have shot someone else when I don't know the circumstances. I don't know the policy and procedure of the agency that employs the reserve officer. He might have followed that policy and procedure religiously dotting every i and crossing every t. If he has done so, then I believe that a seriously long look needs to be taken of the agency's policy and procedure. Before a cop kills a cop there again. Or an innocent private citizen.
Everyone carrying needs to do a risk/benefit analysis on the issue of reholstering the handgun after firing. The risk of reholstering is that the person you just shot might have accomplices bent on revenge. The benefit of reholstering is that it gives an officer, who has you in view, a good reason not to shoot.
Personally, I'd rather chance the accomplices' potential revenge seeking. It takes a fair amount of courage to face down someone who has just killed your partner in crime. I worked collections and repossessions in very bad neighborhoods for fifteen years. I can tell you from personal experience that there aren't that many people with the courage to go for a gun when they know that you are armed, watching, and waiting for their move. There are plenty of bushwhackers, backshooters, and people who are ready and willing to shoot unarmed people. But, I guarantee you, when you've just killed their buddy, and are looking at them with your gun reholstered, there's darn few people who have that good a friend. Based on my personal experience, I would say that the number of people who will go for their gun when you are watching them and they know that you are armed is less than five percent. I've had several people tell me, as I stood in their living room, that they were going to get their gun. I told them that was the thing for them to do. It's peculiar, but not a single one of those people was able to find the gun that they went to their bedroom to get. I never had one step back out in the living room.
So, I have known people from personal experience who might have been a threat if my back was turned but who didn't have the courage to face return fire. I haven't heard of that many cops who failed to open fire from intimidation. In fifteen years, I had exactly one person try to draw on me, face to face during a confrontation. And he thought that I was drawing on him. He was the passenger in a car stopped opposite me on a street. The driver looked at him, looked at me, realized that he was about to be in the middle of a gunfight, and floored the gas pedal.
Between the two, I'd rather take a chance on the dead guy's buddies than to take a chance on the cop identifying me as an upstanding member of the community with a dead guy on the ground and a handgun in my hand. YMMV.
One circumstance that could change my actions: I live in a small town and work the ED in another small town. Usually all of the officers know me fairly well. If I shot someone where I live or work then I would be much less concered about police misidentification. Even then, I would probably reholster. With my luck, the officer would have just moved to town and be on his first shift.
