SHOOTING VICTIM CONVICTED OF ASSAULTING SHOOTER

Following is the first sentence in a story published last week (May 24/13) in the Waterloo Region Record. "A man who was almost killed in a police shooting outside his Waterloo apartment was found guilty Thursday of assaulting the officer who pulled the trigger." Now reread that sentence carefully. It's important to know that the shooting victim did not fire a gun nor have one on him. Also while the shooting victim did indeed have weapons they were fortunately not used against the officer. Finally the officer was uninjured albeit after pulling the trigger five times he may have built up a little callous on his forefinger.

I'm going to give a similar albeit hypothetical scenario for thought here. A 155 pound man who is drunk accosts a young, healthy vigorous 200 pound man outside a bar. The drunk is verbally abusive and then follows up by wildly swinging at and missing the younger, bigger man. The 200 pound man defends himself from any followup swings by knocking the drunk unconscious with three or four punches to the head. The drunk spends several days in hospital after sufferring a concussion. The young 200 pounder is completely uninjured in the fracas and exonerated of any wrongdoing as he was not the aggressor.

So here is my question. Under these circumstances would the drunk be charged with assault? If so would it require a complaint from the uninjured youner and bigger man? What judicial purpose does it serve charging and convicting the drunk of assault after he's already spent several days in the hospital as a direct consequence of his misbehaviour? Keep in mind the consequences to the shooting victim were 100 times more serious than those to the drunk although the principle is similar. I simply do not understand exactly what is being accomplished by prosecuting either the drunk or the threatening individual who was shot five times. They both received very rough street justice on the spot.