Scans_Daily

Rayshaun is not an average guy who was at a protest that turned violent, and he got swept up in it. He was sitting safely at home when he heard the news, so he made a firebomb (!!) and put on a disguise, and he snuck down to an apparently peaceful protest and struck the first blow unprovoked. (This was actually really inconsiderate to all the peaceful protesters.)

If a real-life rioter did that, I be comfortable assuming that yeah, he did have a commitment to change through violent action.

I just don't understand your criteria. Why is killing a dog 'determinative', why is refusing to fight back 'determinative and telling'? I might as well say that a fight is an exceptional circumstance, and how a person reacts when they're being attacked in a fight doesn't say anything about them as people. Maybe they freaked out, maybe they froze up, maybe, maybe, maybe. And we're talking about superhero comics here, most of the circumstances are exceptional. The writer chooses which moments to show us, and if he wanted to make a point that Rayshaun regretted his actions, he could have easily shown us that. He didn't. At some point we have to take it on faith that what the writer shows us is what he wants us to see, that despite the exceptional circumstances, the writer isn't deliberately just showing us all the reactions that are out of character.