“And he was right - and it wasn’t luck.”
So you’re saying the cop KNEW the perp didn’t have a gun in his pocket. Or, you’re saying that even if the perp had a gun in his pocket, the cop KNEW the perp wouldn’t use it on him. Do I have that right?
Nope, you don't - unless you're saying the cop was psychic.
What I'm saying is that the cop had been in combat. He knew what people look like who are coming at him to kill him and who had the means to do it. And to him, during the split-seconds he had to react, this perp didn't add up.
He said himself that he had his eyes glued onto the perp's hand in his pocket. He was well aware that they perp could pull a gun, and how much time he had to fire in self-defense. But remember, he had experience in exactly such situations, where he did indeed shoot to kill in war. So he felt he still had time.
But he also learned to trust his instincts in war. And his instincts told him this perp may well have wanted to be killed by a cop, but wasn't acting as if he was truly, actually a threat. And so, because this particular cop was actually trying with everything humanly possible to NOT take a life, he stretched his own timeline for reacting to the breaking point, because something that SHOULD add up, that he trusted to save his own life many times before - DIDN'T add up.
And, he was right.