Yes. Do you read it differently?
The way the judge reads it in the video above makes way more sense. And you've mentioned the law "is clear" when the defense themselves said it is not clear, and because it is confusing, that's why there is an argument. (I might argue they were saying that because the DA and judge's interpretation was far more straightforward than theirs, and they were trying to make a case for their krumeh interpretation.)
Guy gets caught on video repeatedly looking around a house that has stuff missing from it.
Guy runs away the first time you catch him in the house.
You see the guy at the house again.
Is that "reasonable and probable grounds of suspicion" that he is stealing the stuff that is missing?
He is seen repeatedly not stealing anything, and the owner himself asks the police to tell him to stop coming, not that he is a thief, but that he is tripping the motion sensor and alarm.
When he was shot, he wasn't caught in the house. They only knew he had been in the house long after the shooting. They chased him because he was running, and they assumed he must have been running *from something*.
The prior meeting, the "gun" in the waistband, the stolen stuff on the boat - all of this came long after the video emerged. At the time they made lengthy statements, there is video, they are quite clear on what they were intending to do and what they knew. There is not a single word said about a citizen's arrest, there is not a single word said about detaining him on suspicion of burglary. It's all "he was running, we thought he must have been running from something, we thought maybe he was a guy who was trespassing other times, we wanted to talk to him, we wanted to ID him" etc. Nothing like they had reason to believe this was the guy who committed a specific felony for which they wanted to detain him.
And even if you grant they had probable cause for a felony arrest, and even if the judge *would have* granted their charge that it doesn't have to happen immediately after the crime, they still can't use excessive force, and if they do, Arbery has the right to resist - negating their claim of self-defense.
