My opinion may not be a popular one but that woman escalated this with her actions and those of her son. When people react that way during a traffic stop LEO becomes convinced they are dealing with real bad folk. Normal citizens do not behave that way during a traffic stop.
The woman was speeding down a mountain road endangering her own children and others on the same road.
Her actions were totally out of control as were her son’s. Her son is large for his age and appears to be an adult, as I remember two of the other children are teens so LEO was likely thinking they were dealing with 3-4 adults, two of the “adults” were out of control.
She was so uncooperative LEO did not know what they were really dealing with. As it turns out she had a small amount of drugs and was speeding, most people do not act the way she and her son did unless they are truly bad characters. The way she and her son were acting LEO had no way to know they were not dealing with a kidnap situation- human trafficking or even worse type of criminal behavior.
At least one of the officers claimed to have seen a firearm, and at the time it was not clear it was a toy. The woman had fled and was fleeing again- down a mountain road which seriously endangered everyone in that vehicle and indeed everyone on the road. I do think the officer that fired was shooting at her tires, which as I understand from people who have tried to shoot tires of a moving vehicle it is very hard to hit tires.
This officer had far more cause to fire at that vehicle than the California LEOs had to fire on the newspaper ladies and the man in their vehicles during the Dorner manhunt yet those officers have been cleared as far as I know.
It is pretty easy to armchair quarterback when we knew in the first reports that she was the only adult and the other passengers were children or at least minors. We also knew the gun was a toy and that she is just an out of control idiot and so is her son. LEO at the scene did not have any of this information while they were making split second decisions.
If an officer has any question as to "what he is dealing with" then of course he must shoot whoever he is dealing with. Then he has to say to the next person on the scene, "I felt threatened." Surely the officer in this incident forgot to say that else he would have got two weeks vacation with pay and high fives.
Acting like a raging asshole isn’t a death penalty offense. Rules of engagement, escalation of force measures exist for a reason. He didn’t use his head and now he has some free time to think about it.