not that it really matters, but it stopped being potential "road rage" when
a) he left the road to intentionally injure the protestors on the sidewalk (who were in the way of the entrance to the parking area, but not on a public road)
b) he paused for a few moments before deciding to continue to threaten them with deadly force
c) he clearly saw the pedestrian protestors and the person recording him, and thoughtfully (meditatively - before taking additional action.. i.e. pre-meditated) decided to take the additional action of lurching the vehicle forward into them.
d) there is no evidence he was somehow unaware of the protestor's presence outside his place of business prior to entering his vehicle to commute there. Such a presence could not have been any kind of reasonable surprise.
Nasty thought here: I'm not at all sure they can convict him. He could claim fear that he was being attacked by the protesters that surrounded him. Surrounding vehicles is a common protester tactic--but it's sometimes accompanied by violence.
from my view of the video, the crowd did converge and surround the vehicle.. but only AFTER he started into them. When he first approached... they yelled at him, but did not move towards his truck or surround him... It was not until he started lurching toward the crowd that voices got louder and they started moving to stop him from killing people.
An aspect of justifiable deadly force is that one cannot use such force to protect oneself from an attack that one has instigated themselves. You have to first detach yourself and deescalate your part before the state of who is attacking who can change parties.
That is a good point. If they surround your car and start beating on it, with you inside, I can't really fault you for driving forward/backwards (slowly) to escape. And if somebody gets themselves run over int he process, I'd be pretty lenient with you. I contrast that to a driver who aims for and runs over pedestrians.