I am pretty strongly on the "right to defend and protect" side as a general proposition but the bit above is pretty damning.
Ironically, if Reid had stopped at blocking or ramming the perps' car, he would have recovered his property and they both would have undoubtedly been caught, even if they fled on foot.
I guess my sympathy with protecting property would stop a little short of what Reid seems to have done -- deliberate ram a man on foot (not buying the old foot-stuck-on-gas-pedal story).
"Undoubtedly" is too strong. Likely, sure, but I don't know enough about the surrounding terrain to know if they could blend in and disappear before the cops arrived, and I dont' know whether the car was registered to one of the perps and could be tracked back to him, or it was stolen.
I guess my sympathy with protecting property would stop a little short of what Reid seems to have done -- deliberate ram a man on foot (not buying the old foot-stuck-on-gas-pedal story).
What's relevant isn't whether you buy that story, but whether a jury will buy it. Or will choose to believe it so they don't have to convict (i.e. jury nullification). Or if a prosecutor will conclude that the jury is so likely to do so that prosecuting would be a waste of time. It only takes one person who believes the wrong-pedal story to hang a jury.
Looking at it from another perspective, you seem to be arguing that Mr. Reid decided to smash up his own vehicle and his perfectly good fence after he had effectively already recovered the stolen goods.
I don't buy that. Why would he compound his loss?
In the "I freaked out" adrenalin rush/ split second reaction time, "My foot ended up getting stuck on the gas pedal and in between the brake" is plausible. The episode unfolded very quickly.