> The person you drove over doesn't get to give an alternative story to this necessity, nor do they have to be somebody that you're fleeing from.

Agreed. This is one of many reasons why rioting is awful—it creates these dangerous scenarios where ordinary people have to make split second life-or-death decisions. Frankly, I wish rioting was prosecuted more aggressively rather than blaming people who are stuck in situations where they have to defend themselves (“but they don’t need to be there!” <- people have the right to assemble in public, but rioters don’t have the right to create dangerous situations).

> I don't think it's reasonable to defend yourself from somebody by going up to a passer by and shooting them

This is an embarrassingly obvious straw man. No one is arguing for the right to kill a third party to defend oneself against another, the argument is that people should be given a pass if they accidentally hit someone while fleeing for their life. It’s one thing to disagree with that, but it’s an entirely different thing to lie about the law or the argument.