Murder requires premeditation. There’s no evidence of that.
What we do have is an incident of escalating revelation of crimes, and corresponding escalating tension.
Driver was about to flee, an action which understandably prompts a cop into action against the suspect.
I’ll grant he likely over-reacted. But it wasn’t “murder”. Manslaughter, yeah, overreaction by someone who very well perhaps shouldn’t have been a cop, yeah, but not murder.
Nope. First-degree murder (called "Aggravated Murder" in Ohio) requires premeditation (or, as Ohio law puts it, "prior calculation and design")
Murder (called Second-Degree murder in many jurisdictions) merely requires that the perpetrator "purposely cause the death of another."
No person, while under the influence of sudden passion or in a sudden fit of rage, either of which is brought on by serious provocation occasioned by the victim that is reasonably sufficient to incite the person into using deadly force, shall knowingly cause the death of another or the unlawful termination of another's pregnancy.
Ohio caselaw states that: "For provocation to be reasonably sufficient, it must be sufficient to arouse the passions of an ordinary person beyond the power of his or her control."
I think it would be difficult to show that the victim here engaged in "reasonably sufficient" provocation here. Very difficult.