Civilian, Thou Shalt Not Chase

In the last week two significant -- and strangely similar -- court cases were decided:  Kyle Rittenhouse and Ahmaud Arbery.  Fortunately, both cases were televised so that the whole country, and world beyond, got to see all the evidence, hear all the witnesses, and see the antics of the lawyers involved.  Most enlightening shows they were, too.  
In both cases, I'd say that justice was well served and an important point of American law was clarified.
They both started in a similar fashion: with repeated crimes in the neighborhood.  In Arbery's case there had been a lot of break-ins lately, and Arbery -- who liked to jog around the area after dark -- was a suspect.  The neighbors set up an unofficial armed watch system to defend their property.  In the Rittenhouse case, there had been three nights of rioting in the town, wherein a number of businesses were smashed, looted and burned, and the citizens set up a civilian armed watch system to protect their property from more of the same.  Rittenhouse, whose father and grandmother lived in the neighborhood, came to help. He did not in fact bring a gun with him, but bought a long-barreled hunting rifle there in town.  In both cases the police knew about the impromptu civilian watch groups guarding the properties. 
From that point the cases take two different courses. 
On the night in question, Arbery was seen (and videotaped) going into a house under construction and then running out of it.  The videotape didn't show him taking anything out of the house, but one of the neighbors reported the "possible break-in" to the police and to the rest of the neighborhood watch, whereupon three of those neighbors took off after him in a truck. During the chase, the three men called out to Arbery: "Stop, stop.  We want to talk to you."  When he didn't stop, they pulled the truck in front of him and stopped, and the youngest of the three got out and approached Arbery with a shotgun.  Arbery then made the mistake of attacking the man and (fool's move!) grabbed the shotgun by the muzzle and tried to pull it away from him.  The man then shot Arbery, killing him.  The other two called the police to report the shooting.  No weapon was found on Arbery by the police afterward.
Rittenhouse and the other neighbors in the volunteer watch were approached by a crowd of "demonstrators" who chased them -- and particularly Rittenhouse -- away from the property and down the street. Though Rittenhouse repeatedly called "Friendly!  Friendly!" three of the pursuers converged on him shouting "Kill him!  Get him!" One of the three hit Rittenhouse in the neck with a skateboard, knocking him down, and kicked him in the face.  Rittenhouse then shot him, killing him.  The second man (same fool's move!) grabbed Rittenhouse's gun by the muzzle and tried to pull it away from him.  Rittenhouse then shot him, killing him.  The third man ran up and pointed a pistol at Rittenhouse's head, and Rittenhouse shot him, wounding him in the arm.  Rittenhouse then got up and hurried toward the police down the street, where he reported the shooting. 
The survivor of the three men Rittenhouse shot tried to claim, or at least the prosecutor did on his behalf, that they'd thought he was an "active shooter" and went after him to disarm him.  That claim didn't work for them, and it didn't work for the three who chased down and shot Arbery.  Rittenhouse was found innocent, and the three men who killed Arbery were found guilty. 
The usual race-hustlers threatened demonstrations/riots in "revenge" for Arbery, but all that materialized were a celebration of the verdict and some speeches.  The same agitators threatened riots after the Rittenhouse verdict, even though the three "protesters" he shot were White.  They raised only small and sporadic riots -- a group of 200 in Portland, another 200 in Brooklyn, 100 in Chicago, fewer than 100 in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and Kenosha itself -- and all of them were quickly contained by the police.  Apparently the facts and the law in the Rittenhouse case were too clear for even the most passionate Antifa/BLM propaganda to deny.  
Yes, there is an undeniable legal right to self-defense -- but it has spatial limits, at least for civilians.
In both cases, the verdicts showed that it's one thing for civilians to drive an attacker off their property, but another thing entirely to keep chasing him thereafter.  Those who pursue -- unless they're police -- have no right to claim self-defense if their prey fights back, but the prey can legally claim it.
There's even a parallel for this in warfare.  On driving off an attacking army it's usually a good idea to counter-attack and chase the fleeing enemy -- but be careful not to chase too far lest the retreat turn out to be a fake, intended to draw your troops out into an ambush.  This even applies to police tactics, and police can be expected to control the ground well enough to prevent ambushes.
So as the law stands now, you can drive off an attacker -- but don't pursue very far.  And, if you're the pursued (and you're not committing any crime at the time), you can shoot back.
It's good to have that stated, plain and clear.  
--Leslie <;)))><