At this point, we really don’t know.
My first thought was it’s another example of anti-vigilanteism but that’s just a gut feeling reaction on my part based on pattern recognition, so it doesn’t mean it has any basis in reality in this situation.
A man is facing assault charges for allegedly injuring an intruder inside his apartment in Lindsay, Ont., early Monday morning, according to local police. He...
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(YouTube & Man charged after allegedly assaulting home intruder)
The Police have some motivation from judgement call to policy to politics for charging Mr McDonald, & we just don’t know what that is at this point in time.
The test in s. 34 requires three elements:
criminalnotebook.ca
- Reasonable Belief (s. 34(1)(a)): "the accused must reasonably believe that force or threat of force is being used against him or someone else";
- Defensive Purpose (s. 34(1)(b)): "the subjective purpose for responding to the threat must be to protect oneself or others; and"
- Reasonable Response (s. 34(1)(c)): "the act committed must be objectively reasonable in the circumstances".