[supercat]

BTW, although Beck's lawyer would no doubt tell him to avoid this line of reasoning, I would posit another question: how should Beck have interpreted the act of Logan opening up the van? It seems to me that even with the benefit of retrospect there there were still only two interpretations:

1. Logan was about to enter the vehicle of an accomplice get-away driver. In this case, the driver would not be innocent and Logan would thus not be faulted for taking less care to protect her than he otherwise might.
2. Logan was about to enter the vehicle of an innocent person for the purpose of robbing and likely killing her (Beck knowing first-hand, of course, that Logan had no qualms about killing his victims). In this case, the alternative to Beck taking a risky shot would be the almost certain death of the innocent person.

I don't know if either interpretation played through in Beck's mind at all, but I can't see any interpretion of events, even in retrospect, where Beck's shooting at the van would have increased the likelihood of harm to an innocent compared with doing nothing.

[spunkets]

"I can't see any interpretion of events, even in retrospect, where Beck's shooting at the van would have increased the likelihood of harm to an innocent compared with doing nothing."

You're focusing on negative possibilities as being appoximately a certainty. Once the others appeared in the target x-section, Beck should have backed off. It wasn't his call to take, unless he was certain of doing no harm. In any event he must accept responsibility for what damage he caused.

"Logan was about to enter the vehicle of an accomplice get-away driver."

Stretch. He's not even 50yds away. He can see what's going down. The woman probably screamed.

The motive here is payback. He wasn't doing anyone any favors by shooting at that van.