In what could be considered the most telling insight into police culture yet, the officer charged with second-degree murder for killing a 6-year-old child with autism has requested charges be thrown out — because he shot the boy multiple times in the head in self-defense.

Lt. Derrick Stafford, a deputy city marshal in Marksville, Louisiana, has now asked a judge to dismiss charges because — despite he and fellow officer Norris Greenhouse, Jr.’s claims at the time they did not know Jeremy Mardis was present in the vehicle they fired upon — he acted in defense of his and other officers’ lives.