There was no verbal threat.
There was no menacing with a weapon.
Those were no initial acts of violence against the employee.
Nevada law permits the use of force in self-defense in situations where:
The non-aggressor reasonably believes he/she (or another) is facing an urgent or pressing threat or bodily harm, and
The non-aggressor uses no more physical force than necessary to deflect the threat. 1
As a “stand your ground” state, Nevada law generally gives victims the option of fighting back in self-defense even if they have the opportunity to run away and avoid the conflict. An act of self-defense just has to be reasonable to be lawful. Henderson criminal defense attorney Michael Becker illustrates how self-defense operates in three scenarios:
Example 1: Tom tells John to leave his Henderson home, but John refuses. Tom then puts John in a headlock and leads him out of the house. While trapped in the headlock, John reaches for his knife and stabs Tom in the chest. Tom survives, but the police arrest John for attempted murder with a deadly weapon.
Here, odds are John would not win on self-defense grounds. Even though Tom was the aggressor by putting John in the headlock, the court would probably find that John overreacted with unnecessary physical force. If John had merely bitten or punched Tom to get out of the headlock, John would have a much better case for self-defense.