At first, I was kind of on the side of the police, but the more I think about it, the more I think the official story by the police is BS.
Why would you choose the middle of the night to knock on a suspected murderer's dwelling? It seems the manner preferred in middle of the night search warrant, or arrest warrant executions are with heavily armed, less than cordial SWAT cops.
Again, why would you not announce yourself as the police, when you're simply knocking?
I think they walked into the guys house, and were trying to catch him sleeping.
The guy's actions don''t add up to the police explanation.
Maybe the police shouldn't carry guns and firearms laws should be restrictive, so it's incredibly unlikely the homeowner has one either.Originally Posted by Laworkerbee
Seriously though I agree. Both sides made serious mistakes and it resulted in a tragedy.
Questions
1. If the guy was truly pointing his gun at the cops, why is he dead and why are there not any dead or terribly wounded cops?
2. Why didn’t the cops announce themselves?
3. Why didn’t the victim demand through the closed door that the people id themselves, further, why didn’t he announce he was armed?
There are so many more questions. It sounds like bad O dark thirty mistakes on both sides. RIP and I hope the police review and enforce better policies.
The fact that you could possibly think the police would tell a BS story will mark you as an anti-police hoodlum by the LEO's around here.
Myself live on an unlighted street. If there were people knocking at 0130, there is no way I could tell if they were police or group of gunmen in black clothes.
After thinking about it I think the cops are more in the wrong for their mistakes than the guy that just woke up in the middle of the night.
The cops should be
1. Professional (they are human but I think they should have higher standards)
2. Awake (or at least more than the guy)
3. In control (they were the ones that approached the guy only reacted)
A lot of people are making a lot of conclusions based on a pretty short article. The case reports on the shootings I have been involved in were in 2" ring binders. This investigation is most likely just beginning. That said, I'd like to clear up a couple of premises some folks have made.
The cops didn't announce who they were. There is no constitutional or legal requirement for LE to announce who they are when they knock on your door, unless they are serving a warrant (and there are exceptions to that, too). The deputies here appear to be doing an "attempt to locate" or a possibly a canvas to see if the owner of the suspect's vehicle is still around. This is not a case of cops with a warrant hitting the wrong house.
They should have used SWAT. For what? They did not have a warrant to search a particular place or arrest a particular person. They were just actively looking for a guy, stuff that patrol folks do everyday. I am not extremely familiar with Lake County SO, but I'd guess they don't have a full time SWAT, so calling in the part-timers would cost a pretty penny to the county to solve a problem they weren't 100% sure they had.
Surround and call out. Again, this is an apartment complex, surround which building?
I have knocked on doors probably a couple thousand times. There were times when I'd knock and announce my presence, and times when I just knocked, it all depends on what I was trying to do.
As far as what actually happened when the deputies and the resident were facing each other, I have no real idea. But please keep this in mind: the legal standard for use of dealy force is a reasonable standard. Based on the facts known to the cops at the time deadly force was used, were their actions reasonable? Not right, reasonable.
I'm not justifying what happened, because I wasn't there, but some of the accusations and conclusions reached here are ridiculous.
What he said... The guy have a right to be an idiot in his own home, police do not have right to make such mistakes...
If you point a gun at a cop and he shoots you, that's not a mistake. Even if you're not the guy they are originally looking for. There are no point a gun at somebody freebies.
I have the right to point a weapon towards another person just because I'm in my own home?
So if I go bang on somebody's door at 2 am and he opens with a gun pointing at me I can kill him in his own home no problem?
I have a right to kill someone in their own home simply because they pointed what may or may not be a real gun at me?
I'd consider that self-defence, no matter where the said event would occur.
You simply just don't point guns at other people unless you're ready to pull the trigger.
What are all the facts? Pointing a gun at somebody is an aggravated assault. There may be justifications for the act, such as a justified use of force to repel an assault, but it is still an aggravated assault; in the same way a justifiable homicide is still a homicide.
Being at your place of residence doesn't mean you can just go pointing guns at people because they woke you in the middle of the night by banging on your door. If you think that you have little grasp of self-defense. What facts did the homeowner have that he was in imminent danger of death or serious physical injury from the person knocking on his door that warranted him opening the door and pointing a gun at someone, even if he didn't know it was the cops? If he wasn't sure who was there, did he ask? Did he, from the safety of behind the door call 9-1-1 and say someone's beating on my door? Neither I nor you know exactly what happened in the several seconds just before the shooting.
You are bordering on sounding like an idiot.
You are not legally justified to pull or point a gun (or even what looks like a gun) on/at somebody just because you are at home. There has to be a THREAT. Knocking on someone's door is not a threat.
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