The Glade 4.0

I feel torn about this for all the reasons mentioned. sadly there's no one left to tell his side of the story. So all the officers get to say how they really felt threatened and no one gets to refute his posture. It doesn't mean these cops are lying or that all cops are evil or even that they were outside their rights.

I go back to what I said about Martin/Zimmerman. It's entirely possible that both acted within the law and their rights, but someone is still dead.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

In this case, however, even the officers seem to be saying that they did not identify themselves as law enforcement.

One of the reasons this is such a big deal is exactly so situations like this don't occur.

Whether the cops are breaking in someones door or knocking on it in the middle of the night, there's a requirement to identify themselves as Law Enforcement to avoid innocent people (either the police or the inhabitants) getting shot, for exactly this reason.

I'd be quite interested in hearing DE chime in on this situation.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Someone pounding on my door at 0130, not visible through the peephole or windows? I call the cops, and grab up my shotgun.

Dude opening the door was an idiot.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Ironically, that's exactly what he was doing (exercising caution and common sense)...

Quick question: If someone identifies themselves as a cop, but you're still suspicious, can you call 911 and get confirmation that the cops are really at your house, or will the 911 operators not confirm that?

I'm gonna go with 'It depends'...

Common sense dictates that you would answer an incessant banging from you dont know who at your door @ 1:30 in the morning with a loaded gun pointed at them?

Wouldn't it make a little more sense to, maybe try to ID who it is banging at the door before pointing a gun at them sight unseen. Perhaps call the 911 if you have reason for concern.

Have the gun ready, sure. As soon as the person/people kick in your door, by all means defend your house.

What this guy did was not common sense.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

My understanding is that 100% of the time yes. Might not stop the cops outside your door from kicking it in in the meantime though.

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If they announced themselves as Sheriff's depuities or I saw their police uniforms outside my door at 1:30am, I would know not to open the door.

What I'm saying is, under the duress he must have felt, he was obviously doing what he thought was the right thing. It's easy for us to sit here and judge him, and say you would do something different, and that he's an idiot, but the fact is we don't know exactly what happened or why he decided to open the door with his gun drawn.

We don't know what he heard. We don't know what he thought was happening outside. We don't know why he decided to open the door and point his gun. We will never know.

When you own a gun for home defense, this is what you do. The victim behaved in a perfectly appropriate manner for a gun-owner. He heard a knock at the door at 1:30am, a time when people are not up and about knocking on doors, and he got his gun in case there was a muckery in progress. He opened the door, and brandished the weapon. The story does not explicitly mention this, but it's very likely he was in the process of asking, "What in the hell are you doing at my house at 1:30 in the morning?"

He never got to finish the question, because the police (right, sheriff's deputy) shot him as soon as they saw the gun.

That's not the appropriate manner to respond to a home-owner answering the door with a gun. The appropriate, civilized response is to then explain to the home-owner what in the hell you're doing at their door at 1:30 in the morning. Kudos to the police for not doing that no-knock crap, but that doesn't clear them of all wrong-doing. They were not serving this warrant at a reasonable hour. They were serving it in the middle of the night, when most people are asleep.

The police are not innocent perpetrators of a tragic accident. They were at his door, intruding upon his privacy, and interrupting his sleep. They just happened to have the wrong man. That, unfortunately, does not clear them of any fault. If I, as an engineer, sign off on a bridge that collapses because of a design flaw, I get taken to the cleaners for it. I am personally liable for every person that is injured or killed in the accident, because I did not notice the mistake prior to construction. An innocent man was killed because a judge approved a warrant for the wrong person, or because the police had the wrong house. Just like I would get the book thrown at me for a design flaw that causes injury or death, these police need to be on trial for murder - not manslaughter, but murder. They didn't even wait for an explanation, they simply opened fire immediately upon seeing the gun. If I **** up like that at my job, I'm ruined. Law enforcement needs to be held to the same standard.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

You forgot "Searching for a violent criminal" ...

Corolinth:

A quick search of gun safety rules and you will find something to the effect of "Do not point your gun at anything you do not wish to destroy". Said another way, "Keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction.

So no, the victim did NOT behave in a perfectly appropriate manner for a gun owner.

(I am not absolving the county for their wrongdoing in this matter, in case you think I am trying to not blame the police here)

Police searching for a violent criminal (suspected murderer, I believe) by knocking at the (supposed) door of his location are met with the subject pointing a shotgun at them. How would you expect them to respond. A gun pointed at them from the house of a suspected murderer demands exactly the response they did. Their response was fine, though due to a mistake in the address (or whatever it was) they got the wrong guy and he responded in a way of a completely irresponsible gun owner and it cost him his life.

What it seems you are saying here is that the police, when presented with an attempted murder suspect who is pointing a weapon at them, should stop and have a conversation with him? What do you think they are expecting at that moment? To be invited in for coffee? Their response based on the situation they thought they were in was justified. The circumstances that led them to be in that situation are what caused the problem.

Wrong on both sides here.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Exercise caution? LOL? That what he was doing by taking his gun to the door.

Or did you mean the officers? Because then, yeah, I agree.

I think the word you're looking for is paranoia

Actually the evidence pretty clearly shows that in this case, opening the door with a gun was very much not safe for him.

The only hiccup I see in this take on the incident is that, as stated earlier, we are only getting one side of the story, theirs. Of course he was pointing the gun at them...


Ever tried to open a door while "pointing" a shotgun?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Perhaps I should have said a little more caution and common sense.

Being cautious would be having your weapon at the ready while asking through the door who it is, or opening the door with the weapon at the ready, but not aimed at the person knocking.

Smart gun ownership is obviously a hard thing for some people. If he wasn't ready to shoot the person knocking at his door, he should never have had the gun pointed at them or he should have simply tried to identify who it was at his door BEFORE opening it.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Even this ***hole knows to identify himself when knocking at doors:

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Vindicarre:

Yes, I did read an article that called to question whether or not he was pointing the weapon at them. Of course, if he opened the door and then moved to aim the weapon at them, my point stands.

If the gun was simply at his side and the cops shot him anyway, not so much.

I am just trying to say that, IF the cops were met with the barrel of a shotgun at the door of a suspected attempted murder suspect, then their response was justified.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Even if he was "pointing" his weapon at them, I don't see it as being "justified", understandable, but not "justified". See, it's not "at the door of a suspected murder suspect", it's at the door of an apartment occupied lawfully by a private citizen. The police have a suspicion that the murder suspect may be inside due to their finding the suspect's motorcycle parked in the complex's parking lot near the door. The causative act here is the police knocking and not identifying themselves, not the resident opening the door with a weapon.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

So you believe the officers would have gunned him down if he opened the door unarmed?

There were multiple causes to what happened. Changing any of of them would have resulted in a different outcome.

Yup, definitely not cut and dried. Still wrong on both sides. Surely the resident could have acted more cautiously, and the police got the address wrong and decided not to announce their presence when banging on his door at a ridiculous hour of the morning.

Unfortunately, it led to the death of an innocent man.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

If the officers had identified themselves he wouldn't have answered the door armed and no one would've been gunned down.

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A question to gun owners here:

Would you ever answer a unexpected, banging at your door with your weapon drawn? I am certain that I would endeavor to commnicate with/ID who it is before opening the door and be at the ready with my shotgun should it escalate.

Or for that matter, would you ever point your weapon at anyone you were not ready to shoot?

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.