Happened to me just yesterday.

Wife: what are you doing? Me: pushing the hard reset button. Wife: it’s not possible. Windows started booting up! Me: No, it’s necessary.

Just based on the facts from what information we have, I fully agree. The story would have to change significantly in order to show anything other than exemplary display of good self-defence principles:

• avoid being in a shady location - check
• when getting in a sticky situation anyway, attempt to flee / defuse (good judgement on what to try first) - check
• if still in the threats phase: back off a bit to clearly demonstrate that you are not the aggressor, support that verbally - check
• If it is clear that the attacker ignores your pleas, do the minimum damage to STOP the attack safely. Based on that principle, he could have pulled & shot a lot sooner, but apparently wanted to be more defensive & nice than most would have been - check

You should not allow a verbally aggressive person to stay at a distance where they could land a punch or use a concealed knife at any time, especially after you backed off already. Try articulating near a cop’s face and see what (rightfully) happens.