How was the shooting clearly unjustified?
The shots that led to death were unjustified.
First shot:
The first possible shot occurred while the officer was in the car.
From the evidence I have heard, this shot was very likely to be justified.
If the suspect was in the officers window and aggressive, I do believe the officer had the right to shoot.
2nd group of shots:
Out of the 2nd group of shots, one hit the suspect in the back.
The legality of these shots varies from state to state. In many cases, it is legal to shoot if the suspect is likely to pose a threat to others and the officer doubts his ability to otherwise apprehend the suspect.
Lets just give our man in blue the benefit of the doubt here. Lets call this a clean back shoot.
3rd group of shots:
Suspect is shot, he turns and raises his hands in a stance of surrender while at the same time announcing that he does not have a gun.
These final shots that took the life of the suspect were nothing short of homicide. What level of homicide is unclear.
We should again give our man in blue the benefit of the doubt and assume that he made a mistake due to being pumped up on adrenaline from being assaulted and from the pursuit and gunfire.
And assume that the killing as not racially motivated or born out of malice or revenge.
But even so, no matter how you slice it, those final shots were unjustified and the law was broken when a life was taken.
The officer had no knowledge of the incident at the store and therefore that incident is completely irrelevant.
But just for the point... Let us imagine not only that the cop knew of the crime, but let us imagine that the suspect had just murdered 75 small children with a butcher knife.
If Brown had just murdered 75 small children with a butcher knife, and then raised his hands and surrendered to an officer that had already wounded him...
And then that officer gunned him down in front of multiple witnesses...
That officer would still be guilty of some degree of homicide or unlawful killing.
We are not barbarians.
Even 200 years ago it was unlawful to gun down a surrendering suspect.
The shooting was unjustified because the final killing shots were unlawful.