Lamone Mizzy Rashaad McCoy, a 20-year-old African American man from Pittsburgh, was fatally shot multiple times on September 14, 2015, in an apartment on South Seventh Street in Jeannette, Pennsylvania. Witnesses said McCoy was waving an automatic rifle and claiming he had been robbed of $4,000 worth of heroin when a confrontation with 18-year-old Jeannette resident Jamere Ramone Glanton ended with McCoy shot.

Glanton was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. At the preliminary hearing his defense argued he acted in self-defense, saying McCoy threatened him and others with the rifle. Prosecutors presented evidence that McCoy was shot eight times, including five times in the face and head, a detail the prosecution said undercut the self-defense claim.

How do readers interpret the contrast between the witnesses reporting an armed McCoy and the prosecution’s emphasis on the number and placement of the gunshot wounds?