In the real estate appraisal business, I must go on other people's property all the time. They have no idea I am coming, they go through the bank, and the bank places the order with us. Most homeowners don't realize that someone actually will come to their house when it is a drive-by. When I drive onto these people's property and they are there, they usually walk out and inquire what I am doing in a very polite manner. "
Oh where to begin??
I believe I now understand your position, point of view, and approach. Please bear with me, I'm not a lawyer, but it appears we both have performed some similar work.
I'd recommend some good legal anthologies on Property Law. Man, you've been lucky, if nobody has shot you yet by trespassing the way you imply, and yes, they may have many very good reasons and rights to do just that. It might not matter what you intend. It is their land. A litany of common law, regulatory law, case law, and criminal law may give real property owners benefit of the doubt in using deadly force to defend their interests.
Especially in the case of Cooper, who is by no means typical. He's closer to a modern day Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, than an old geezer in the gutter.
No suggestion is being made that colloquially, a property owner should place a barrell of a gun in the mouth of somebody who sets foot on their parcel. In counterexample, If you climbed over a teller's window at a bank with a water pistol and started placing dollar bills from an open till in your pocket, I'm sure some reasonable arguments could be made wherein deadly force isn't justified, but common sensically, deadly force will probably be employed by bank guards.
If I may be so bold, let me suggest a different approach by the officers in Cooper's case. One officer park his car off Cooper's property, on the public street. Walk up to Cooper's house after giving him a telephone call letting him know he was approaching. Discuss the accusation with Cooper. Calmly communicate to Cooper the limits of Cooper's power to use deadly force and how he might still be able to defend himself without encroaching upon others. Walk away from the scene as a friend of Cooper's. Go back and arrest the trespasser who filed the inital complaint after repetitive encroachments for purjury.
Nobody would have been killed. Peace would have been maintained. And the fellow provoking the contrived argument would have suffered the risk of false testimony and his initial unwanted encroachment.
BTW, just because a bank has an interest or a title on a parcel, doesn't insure they have authority to ingress/egress without notice to the landowner or possessor of the deed. his might vary, state to state, but Cooper wasn't just out shooting at bypassers from his property. On the initial complaint, he followed the trespasser off his property. Cooper also may have a decent case for some legal interest in the land surrounding his deeded to others. In the case of the fellow claining to have been a victim of aggravated assault because Cooper was carrying a weapon when he was escorted off the land, Cooper might have been defending the public interest in the BLM property as one defense.
I strongly believe that the initiating events surrounding these deaths were not mere happenstance. Had they simply been a case of mistaken identity, the Sheriff's could have handled the situation entirely differently and peacefully.