What do y'all think about this Rick Chow case?

Tagging this "non-political" only because this isn't outwardly or explicitly about a politician or movement, and I don't see too many people talking about it.

[article](https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/01/us/south-carolina-murder-trial-cyrus-carmack-belton)

Now, I will give credit to Chow's lawyer, because holy fuck was that a strong closing statement. That said, I think that this case is has some similarities to the George Zimmerman shooting, as well as the Kyle Rittenhouse shooting. Mr. Chow believed that Cyrus Carmack-Belton, a 14 year old who entered the store, had stolen a water bottle. You can see in the store security cameras that Cyrus took out 4 water bottles from a cooler while an older Asian woman glared at him. He put them back and began to walk out of the store. When asked to put back all the water bottles, he said that he did (which was true), and he leaves. Chow and his son race after him, not knowing that Cyrus was armed. Allegedly, Cyrus pulled this illegal firearm from his shirt and pointed it at Chow's son, which is when Chow opened fire.

One key thing I've seen people talking about is that the shooting happened over 100 yards from the store. While Cyrus' side says that it's because Chow was going out of his way to murder the boy, Chow's side uses it to say that it wasn't murder because it would've been easier to shoot him in the store.

Here's the similarities to the Trayvon Martin case and the Rittenhouse trial:

Similar to Trayvon Martin, there wasn't any real proof that Cyrus had committed a crime.

If the allegations are true that Cyrus did in fact pull his gun, Cyrus had pulled his gun on someone chasing after him for no justifiable reason, kinda like Kyle Rittenhouse.

I'm not quite sure the prosecution didn't attempt to reframe Cyrus pulling the gun as potentially justified (although maybe they tried to, I'm not intimately familiar with the details of the case). In either case though, I'm having a hard time understanding how this isn't murder.

If Cyrus didn't pull the gun, then he was shot for no reason, based on the suspected theft of an item which he had not stolen. If he did pull the gun, he did it to defend himself from two attackers chasing after him. Either case, in my legally uneducated opinion, SHOULD be considered murder.

That said, I know this sub is a bit smarter than other echo-chambers, so maybe there's something that I'm missing that someone can fill me in on. I know this sub/fanbase has some opinions on the Kyle Rittenhouse, so I'd be curious to see what other people here think.