Writing under his real name on the forum The Firing Line, Eric Gelhaus wrote under a thread entitled “He’s got a gun! ... A bb gun...” that: “It’s going to come down to YOUR ability to articulate to law enforcement and very likely the Court that you were in fear of death or serious bodily injury. I think we keep coming back to this, articulation — your ability to explain why — will be quite significant.”
Read more at: http://www.heavy.com/news/2013/10/erick-gelhaus-andy-lopez-shooting-cop/
The question I would ask his boss, the Sheriff, is this:
You held up two rifles in the news conference — one an AK47 and the other a plastic pellet gun.
Can you, an LE professional, tell them apart??? How??? Which is the quickest way???
Then why couldn’t your 24 year experienced deputy who is also a gun expert and trainer???
Or was he just in the mood to kill someone that day like he had been for months???
I’ll bet Gelhaus knew that it was a toy and he shot anyway. He had been itching to pull the trigger for a long time and this was his moment and he had to act quickly before it passed.
And by shooting prematurely before Andy got turned around to see that the gun was really just a toy he can claim that he really didn’t get a good look at the gun and assumed it was real.
And that bogus assumption gave him the green light to shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot.
He wasn’t in fear for his life. He was in fear that this opportunity would slip through his fingers. He had to shoot Andy before he got too far turned around where his kid features and the toy features of the gun would become too incontrovertibly apparent for him to feign ingorance as he is doing now.
This comment is quite concerning. Note here that he doesn't emphasize how to distinguish a bb gun from a real gun in the situation but how to talk your way out of it when its over.