Quite possible. However, if person A and person B are exchanging gunfire, how do you know which person is the perp and which a person legally defending himself? This is often difficult to thrash out in a court of law.
Quite possibly the cops chose to just shoot everybody. But I am really interested in an answer to this question. People just seem to assume it's immediately obvious. Maybe sometimes it is. But I suspect often not.
BTW, in many if not all states you can have both sides guilty of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder. There isn't always a "victim" on hand. Sometimes they're all perps.
Not to say that was necessarily the case here.
You said a lot not to have said any thing.
In the military we went by the rules of engagement.
In most cases with people in civilian clothing that tended to be that if we weren’t taking fire ourselves and couldn’t tell who was who we were to hold our fire until we could.
In the absence of specific instructions given for this operation I would imagine that there is a state law or department regulation to that effect that should have been applied here.
I think someone panicked.