If he truly felt that popcorn in his face was an assault then he could have done what as an officer he probably advised hundreds of people to do — get his name, go tell management, get his license number, file a police report, sue him in a court of law — and get laughed out of court.
If he truly felt that the guy was about to lose it and punch him or pull out a gun and shoot him, then he should have quit throwing gasoline on the fire stoking the flames. He should have put his big fat ass back down in his seat or moved to another seat.
100 empty seats and he chooses to sit right behind the 6’4” guy who was texting. Since when do you sit in the seat right behind the the tall guy blocking the screen — unless you did it because you saw him texting and wanted to pick a fight with him to exert your “authority”.
If quickdraw was really paranoid and felt threatened, he could have, as a last resort, sat his ass down and shut up and taken his gun out and put it on his lap just in case.
There were a whole lot of steps he could have taken between popcorn and deadly force.
Since you are unable to see that, I would suggest that if you carry that you put your gun away for awhile in a drawer and leave it there until you can come to grips with where Curtis Reeves was wrong.
Reeves leaving, finding no joy with a manager, and then returning to escalate the arghment to the point of a gun, doesn’t pass the smell test for the frightened senior citizen. It fits the profile for a defunct SWAT team captain with past performance evaluations warning of his anger issues, becoming somewhat defunct and set in his ways in his elder years, and somewhat territorial in his habits. It’s starting to sound like he appointed himself textfinder general for that particular theater. His need to remain relevant was forever tied with his lifelong ability to force his will on another. His anger took him to a place where if he could not force someone to obey his will, then he was no longer relevant.
And as a police officer, the ultimate enforcement of another to your will, is to kill them. It’s allowed. There’s a procedure. And he followed procedure, giving the answers a cop would.
One final note. This is just me. But as a half assed martial artist since 1976, when I’m surprised by something I might jump back like a cat. But to pull a gun out, advance, pissed off enough to shoot through the wife to put a bullet in his heart...
Curtis Reeves is not the victim.
Somebody throwing popcorn into another's face IS an assault. It's a crime.
Showing a firearm without justification is a crime just like throwing objects into somebody's face.
Why do you describe the ex-cop as standing during the attack? Is that in the evidence?
Others have suggested that the tickets were sold with assigned seating. Was that the case?
Why did the wife end up with a gunshot wound to her hand? What did she think was going to happen which caused her to attempt to physically restrain her husband?