No, he is not a victim. I, personally believe that your assessment of him to Uncle Chip hits the nail squarely on the head. However, this is not the case for those that are defending him and his action[s]. To them, he is/was a cop and that is all that matters to them. They worship authority and cops represent authority. And they defend the actions of him and those like him, no matter how repugnant those actions are, to their last breath. In fact, it is my opinion that they would defend the actions of the Einsatgruppen in Eastern Europe during 1940-42.
You've definitely got the wrong number here. There's no way anybody could mistake me for being "pro-cop". And don't even get me started on the BATFE.
My concern is that I carry concealed and there is a pronounced media bias against such. Those who carry can make mistakes and those mistakes can be fatal.
What would help, however, is a little less tolerance for behavior such as the attacker in this case. I think it very possible that the ex-cop over-reacted. But nobody deserves a free ride to attack somebody else.
The idea that somebody could angrily throw popcorn into my face and that the police would just laugh it off makes me sick.
I haven't studied the concept of "fighting words" but most jurisdictions outlawed dueling long ago. There's a pretty sharp line between arguing over texting and throwing an object into another's face. I don't trivialize such actions. They are indicative of a serious problem.
In the Zimmerman case the media assured us that some wanna-be cop stalked a little black boy and then shot him dead for the fun of it. I don't expect everybody to maintain the mindset that I would expect from a jury, but I see many possibilities for charges less serious than second-degree murder in this case.
In the Zimmerman case there was a legal concept in play that the jury was not to learn anything about Martin that was not known to Zimmerman. The jury was supposed to view the situation from the perspective of Zimmerman and what he knew at the time of the shooting.
I can imagine how I would feel as a member of a jury if I had found Zimmerman guilty only to find out later what a thug Martin was. The jury in the Reeves case will no doubt be in the same situation; that is, they will be told little or nothing about the victim's background.