“If a guy’s brandishing a gun and telling you to get off his property, even if he’s wrong, you don’t “try to calm him down”, you get out of there ASAP and call the police.”
Absolutely correct! Even if he doesn’t have show a gun.
The shootee grabbing his arm to “try to calm him down”, connected to the ones with handful of rocks, just got the guy off on self defense. It would be perfectly reasonable to assume grabbing his arm was an aggressive act to whit they all pummeled him.
The guy who got shot should have grabbed the arms of those armed with rocks if his intent was to defuse the situation.
Lesson, never get within reach if you are the one with the gun!