You must always treat any firearm as if it was loaded, as such when someone shows a firearm it is presumed to be loaded. Just because you're waving around an unloaded firearm doesn't mean anyone else knows it's unloaded.

Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine told Action 3 News that 18-year-old Marquail Thomas had no shells in his shotgun, but may have been aiming at customer Harry McCullough when he was shot.

This is yet another example of people who don't have proper firearms training passing judgment. There is not a gigantic neon arrow pointing to the gun that says "Unloaded". The presumption is that every firearm is loaded, even when you know otherwise. Hind sight is always 20-20, just because more comes to light doesn't mean it was a bad decision. The judgment of the decision must be made within the context of the information available at the time.