I heard about this and was tentatively outraged but after seeing the video I can kinda see why this is controversial. That blindside push made the guy fall over hard, hard enough for a risk to cause pretty serious injury. It definitely qualifies as an assault, there is no question that the black guy assaulted the white guy. The white guy was completely in the wrong for playing wannabe police officer and verbally assaulting the dude's gf but you can't just floor someone like that.

The black guy then stepped toward the downed white guy and squared up on him, which demonstrates an intent to continue the assault. At this point you can argue that the white guy had reason to fear serious bodily harm (if the fall didn't already inflict it).

Here's where I'm gray on this. Watch the video here. At 1:09 of the video, the white guy grabs his gun and the black guy starts backing off. At 1:11, the white guy shoots.

So there's 2 seconds where the black guy backs off at which point, as an arm-chair quarterback, I would say he was not justified in shooting.

But armchair quarterbacks aren't dealing with adrenaline and fear. Armchair quarterbacks aren't dealing with having just been assaulted moments ago. Is 2 seconds a reasonable amount of time to get your bearings and make the right decision in the immediate aftermath of an assault?

Fuck man, I don't know.