quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
What do you think will happen to the people involved in subject of this thread?

He'll get a promotion? They should have had their body camera's working, just like their dash cam's. I'm going to guess that it won't be long until failure to do that will/should result in another career. They're the only one's controlling the situation. They started it, they screwed up big time, and not recording it just doesn't look good. As bad as shooting an Australian girl for no reason.

Just as we condemn all kinds of people for being in the wrong job, its worse for lousy police officers. Just like 007, they feel like they have a license to kill. Or maybe not. But they'd probably like at least one "do over" in their career.

Back to Chongo's answer above that he doesn't answer the door unless he's expecting someone. I wonder how he'd react if he was the knocker and he could see or make out a person ignoring his knocks.

We've departed from basic courtesy in our society. Polite folks don't come a knockin' after a certain hour. Or ring the phone unless its a genuine emergency. Just because its an emergency to you isn't enough. If you bother me late at night for something trivial or not important to me, I might not answer or might answer armed to the teeth.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:

quote:

Originally posted by Dead_Eye:

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

No. But it's quite obvious that if I'm ever greeted by someone with a gun pointed at me at one of those calls, you guys would rather read my obituary.

Great point which raises a question. Take this story for example. We have an innocent homeowner, and a guy trying to do his job.

Who's life is more important? The innocent homeowner, or the police officer? Would we rather read the homeowner's obituary, or the officer's obituary?

We know that in reality the answer would be neither, but in this case we have to choose.

I choose police officer. They got the manpower, resources, weapons, armor and tactics. They're also choosing the when and the where. If shots are fired, the police are more likely to land theirs and if anyone is going to get shot the police officer has a far better chance of surviving.

That said, situations like this are awful for everyone involved and hopefully better methods that are safe and effective will reduce the likelihood of these things happening.

Statistically, all your points are the opposite. People who kill officers report to practice more often than officers do, they are able to get the first shot off using the element of surprise, thus have a much better hit rate than officers. The bad guys who attack officers always choose the when and where. Officers who are killed from an attack overwhelmingly are not able to get a shot off.

My answer was based upon choosing the innocent homeowner vs. the police officer. The innocent homeowner doesn't get to choose when and where the police storm his house. He's unlikely to be wearing body armor and having a team of people back him up. Most people aren't able to practice shooting in low light/nighttime conditions and can't shoot first then ask questions later. Moreover, if they do shoot and it's a bad shoot they'll be arrested, endure a criminal and civil trial (at their expense) and their lives will be ruined. Lastly, in this situation if the homeowner had shot an officer thinking he was a legitimate threat he'd be dead anyways because I'm pretty sure the rest of the police officers would return fire until he's dead.

On the other hand, a police officer shoots an innocent homeowner and they'll get paid leave, a stern talking to and the city will cover all legal costs and payoffs.


Again, if I had to choose between a police officer who's at the wrong address trying to do his job or an innocent homeowner getting shot, I pick the police officer.

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by trapper189:


Back to Chongo's answer above that he doesn't answer the door unless he's expecting someone. I wonder how he'd react if he was the knocker and he could see or make out a person ignoring his knocks.

That is a common occurrence. Usually we do nothing. There are 5 other calls holding, and unless it's something like a significant felony warrant or a domestic assault warrant (yes, the warrant from this mess would count) we move on to what's next.

If it is a significant warrant, we decide if we have enough to enter based on the 4th Amendment and caselaw. If we do, we either enter or go get a search warrant, if the address is different than what is on the arrest warrant. If we don't, we go to the next call.

That's a patrol answer. I have also worked on units that serve warrants, and have spent many hours watching a location waiting for the best opportunity to take a suspect into custody, but on Patrol, there's bigger fish to fry.

I will also add, leaving is usually the answer. You would be baffled at some of the scenarios where we just give up and leave. One night about 2 years ago I was sure we were going to get sued and my career was over, because we failed to enter a house on a domestic protection order violation call. The order to do nothing came from a lieutenant at Ops Command, the after-hours head of the PD, who wasn't on scene but was called by the two sergeants that were. I still know we were wrong, and if the female had been hurt we would have all been done. And that's not my worse story about doing nothing.

As far as knocking on someone's door at 11:30pm to gather intel, I did not say I thought that was a good idea, nor is would it be acceptable under most circumstances in my experience. Extreme cases, yes, I suppose. Serial killer; armed and dangerous and his last kill was still warm; you walk by and notice the resident walking his dog or having a smoke outside; terrorist that just planted a bomb...you get the idea. I don't remember ever cold-knocking a door at 11:30 at night to ask about a neighbor though. I've had to evacuate a few people after midnight, but that was a different scenario.

But what do you think I should have done if I was evacuating a house/apartment building at midnight and someone answered the door pointing a gun at me? See how it gets tricky?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: chongosuerte,

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
You've said scenario 1 is really bad and scenario 3 is something you take steps to avoid. Are you ok with scenario 2?

I'm not "ok" with scenario 2. Obviously the officers were at the wrong location, unless we learn something new, and if they had not been there the resident wouldn't have answered the door.

But even controlling for that, any person, UPS driver, Mormon, Pizza guy, YOU, etc., would be justified in shooting in scenario 2. It could also be me or anyone I work with on a normal shift. Scenario 2 has absolutely nothing to do with a person wearing a badge or looking for a bad guy.

We've had threads about this before in the decade I've been around (not involving police)...answering the door by pointing a gun is a bad idea, not legal, and gives the person on the other end the legal justification to shoot.


As far as preventing or avoiding it? That's pretty obvious. Verify the warrant, verify the address, both on a map and visually. Had they stuck the damn address into Google Maps, they would have seen it was on the opposite side of the street. That's a great help when people don't put a freaking address up (not this case, but common). Better training, better supervisor oversight, and follow policy/procedure. And know the area you work...if they had dealt with the shithead before, as the stories say, they should have known where he lived. And NEVER trust dispatch 100%. For all we know, they could have given dispatch the address, dispatch could have miss-keyed it in, and their CAD map showed them at the right spot.

That's a start.

quote:

The discussion was about how it happens and what can be done to prevent it. I haven't seen that in this thread.

Trapper, trailer parks are a shit show. Many of the trailers have been towed in from other parks multiple times. Many of them still have old addresses still showing from other places and many have no address marking its location at all. In my experience they are all dimly lit and over grown with brush frequently covering the addresses.

Dispatch and the human beings who work there are another big problem. Information comes in and is collected by a call taker. They relay the information to the dispatcher who then broadcasts the information to the officers on the road. Do you remember the telephone game we all player in elementary? You, know where one kid whispers a single work to another kid and they keep passing the word around until it gets back to the first kid who used the word "Dog." The word he got back some thing else... That happens a ton and I don't know any cop who doesn't realize the info dispatch is feeding us is mostly wrong. It could be wrong because of lousy info the caller, bad info from dispatch or we, the cops on the road, misunderstood it. Comms are always an issue and I see little chance this will ever get better.

Many warrants and crime reports are called in by people in their communities trying to get the bad guy picked up for various reasons. The information is something like "the brown trailer across from callers trailer." This happened to me tonight on a intox person call and guess what? There were three brown trailers across from the callers trailer. The callers trailer had an address but we couldn't see it behind the bush and phone calls back were not answered.

Oddly enough several weeks back we were trying to arrest a gent who was wanted for aggravated assault. Doing serious bodily injury like a broken bone will get a warrant for agg. assault in my state. Brass knuckles, cudgels, and the like can get an agg assault warrant as well. It is not always about guns or shootings. In our jurisdiction we knock and talk these warrants. We don't take our guns out of our holsters to serve most felony warrants. We send three officers for a warrant as we can't spare anyone else. I have served plenty of felony warrants with two guys. Generally though one officer covers the back and two make contact at the front door.

On the intox call tonight We knocked on all three trailers looking for our drinking problem. No problems with the first two trailers which were wrong addresses. The third was the charm but the bad guy had left an hour before we arrived according to his sister who was allowing him to flop here for the last month or so after getting out of jail. We went back to the neighbors trailers and let them know about the warrants and asked them to call us back if they see him. We also linked this call and the warrant to the correct address so we would have the info next time. By the way there was no address on this trailer. It will be a problem for the next crew who has to respond to it...

In my eyes you can't point guns at people for being at the wrong address. it's a mistake but it's not a something you can point guns at people for.

Reports now are that he was shot in the back of the head.
Linky

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
Reports now are that he was shot in the back of the head.
Linky

I've never heard of a law firm releasing an independent report before the coroner or police release theirs. But if the guy was shot thru the door in the back of the head, I don't think he could have been pointing a gun at them when he was shot. If this is true and given the preliminary reports, I wonder how this might be explained away.

How long does it typically take for a coroners report to be released?
Are they always available to the public?

It does appear unusual for a law firm to have theirs released so quickly.
I did not realize one could have there own forensics team examine the body.
Or perhaps the body was released for burial and then the family did this?

quote:

Originally posted by lbj:
How long does it typically take for a coroners report to be released?
Are they always available to the public?

It does appear unusual for a law firm to have theirs released so quickly.
I did not realize one could have there own forensics team examine the body.
Or perhaps the body was released for burial and then the family did this?

They generally don't release their report until the tox screen is done and that can take three to four weeks for my state.

I live in an area where the local prosecutor likes to try his cases in the press. Recently he did his best to throw a cop under the bus. Twice the trials ended with a hung jury. It seems both times the jury wanted acquittal. Some holdouts so it became a mistrial.

In this thread, it seems the defense or the new plaintiff wants all the information out front. The problem here will be a door with a bullet hole and a decedent with a bullet hole from the back. Those will be hard to explain away if true. BLM will have a field day unless most of the cops were also black.

quote:

Originally posted by gw3971:

quote:

Originally posted by lbj:
How long does it typically take for a coroners report to be released?
Are they always available to the public?

It does appear unusual for a law firm to have theirs released so quickly.
I did not realize one could have there own forensics team examine the body.
Or perhaps the body was released for burial and then the family did this?

They generally don't release their report until the tox screen is done and that can take three to four weeks for my state.

This is what I meant a few pages ago when I said the victim's attorney is worth whatever whomever is paying him. He is 100%, full speed ahead.


Regarding shooting through the door...there is a perfectly good scientific explanation related to the amount of time it takes for the brain to tell you to stop doing something, especially under stress. 3 shots is certainly within that time frame.

That may or may not apply to our scenario, and doesn't make it any better even if it does.

If the person shot was a family member of mine, I really would not want everything in the press.

Unfortunately, the press doesn't feel that way... ratings.

You think that if you go to the wrong address, in the middle of the night, blinding the homeowner and then kill him, it might just be your problem and not his? In my experience serving warrants, in some of the shittiest neighborhoods, going to the wrong house never resulted in killing an innocent bystander. If it had, I would have been charged with manslaughter. This back and forth about whose life is more valuable, and should the guy have come to the door armed bla, bla, bla is humbug. If you are not careful, and you kill someone unintentionally, it may be involuntary, but it's manslaughter. Intent, unfortunately, follows the bullet.

Far too much speculation here, not enough information. We have only heard the family lawyer's version of what happened, let's see what the investigation turns up

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:
BLM will have a field day unless most of the cops were also black.

Is the dead guy black? I figured he was mexican by the last name.

If he isn't black then BLM won't care. They try to act like the really believe that all live matter but you never see them around when anyone but a black person gets killed by the police.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:

quote:

Originally posted by mutedblade:

quote:

Originally posted by jljones:

Here's the thing. All we know at this point is that a dude was shot at the wrong house. That is it.

Every bit in this is speculation, very few facts.

Does it look bad? Yes, it does.

jljones, I picked out the most relevant things in your post. Cherry picking if you will, but I feel that it gets my point across the best.

You stated the most obvious fact and probably the most important. The dude was shot and killed in his house. Whether he had a gun on him, close to him, or whether he had one at all is not an issue that I care about. He was well within his rights as a citizen/resident (not sure which actually applies here) to have a gun inside of his home for protection. That is a very simple human right that I am sure we can all agree on. Now back to the story...He was killed inside his home. The police were the ones that killed this man. Those are the facts that we have. There is a bunch of speculation in this story and I will agree with you on that, BUT there is that one pesky fact, the only fact that matters....That one where the WRONG DUDE GOT KILLED BY POLICE IN THE WRONG HOUSE. Anything outside of this is trying to bury the shit with little technicalities like "oh, he had a gun pointed at a cop" or some other excuse for a bad shoot. Why shouldn't this victim have been armed? Is this not what we espouse on this forum? To protect ourselves?

Here's my problem with the whole situation. The guy had no reason to expect the police at his home, much less trying to enter it forcibly! He wasn't a shithead thug with a sheet of convictions. He wasn't wanted for even the smallest offense, yet he was shot and killed by the police...in his home. His crime? Not one. Nothing. Police officers majorly fucked up and here Sigforum is debating whether it was a good shoot or not. I just can't understand.

We are a society that enjoys our freedoms. Freedom from fear of the police is one. I can't think of any place I should feel more safe than in my own home. I should have a reasonable expectation to not have the cops beating on my door at any time of the day unless I have somehow fucked up, right? This is probably how Mr. Lopez felt and now he's getting smeared because some of us can't accept that LEO sometimes fuck up.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:
I'd like to point out how perfect I am.

I respond to an average of 100 calls every one of my 4-day work-weeks. Some days it is 30 calls a day.

I usually end up at the wrong location at least once a shift, usually more.

Going to wrong locations based on 911 calls is an EVERY DAY THING.

But, do you shoot and kill someone EVERY DAY at the wrong location? Please don't answer that as I was just trying to get a point across.

No. But it's quite obvious that if I'm ever greeted by someone with a gun pointed at me at one of those calls, you guys would rather read my obituary.

If you're doing it right (or close enough to right), there won't be any innocent people pointing guns at you. As said earlier - put the strobes on. Or make sure in some obvious way that the homeowner knows for a fact that the cops are here BEFORE he opens the door...

And if he's not innocent and pointing a gun - shoot him and I have no problem with it..

The vic's family attorney acknowledged in their statement (about him being shot in the back of the head) that they reached that conclusion through examination of the physical evidence, so nothing about the coroner's report corroborates their statement as yet.

If what they say holds on to be true, it does look bad for the SPD, I'll grant.

After reading Chongo's possible scenarios, several of them ring true as contenders. Total crapstorm, either way.

Wanted to pull this thread back up and get a new perspective hopefully. Here is a thread that states "fake" police pulled over a car and then committed armed robbery.

Now, as a homeowner at 11:30 PM, how can we be certain that when we answer a door for the police, they are actually the police? Remember, in this situation, Mr. Lopez nor his wife called the police. As far as he knew, there would be no good reason for the police to even be at his door at that time and Mr. Lopez had already been robbed one time before at that location. Does this change the situation for any of the LEO's that posted in here?

How are we to react when a situation like this arises? "Fake" cops, wearing "police" gear (easily purchased online) come up to your house late at night shining a light in your eyes, shoot your dog, and tell you to drop your gun (if you're even holding one at all)....Are we supposed to KNOW they are fake cops? Are we just supposed to "comply" with commands in hope that the "cops" are really cops?

This situation has played out several times recently and it seems like a good way for criminals to make the general population more compliant, easier, and softer targets.

quote:

Originally posted by rburg:

We've departed from basic courtesy in our society. Polite folks don't come a knockin' after a certain hour. Or ring the phone unless its a genuine emergency. Just because its an emergency to you isn't enough. If you bother me late at night for something trivial or not important to me, I might not answer or might answer armed to the teeth.

This depends on your cultural norms. My wife's family is Hispanic, and they have an ENTIRELY different set of standards. I've seen people show up at all hours without calling 'just to say hi.' I get group texts all the time late at night when I'm trying to sleep. They have different standards when it comes to 'acceptable calling/visiting hours.'

Maybe this guy was used to people showing up late at night. Maybe he isn't the 'stay locked behind his doors' type - if somebody was traipsing across his property he would not ignore it, but address it personally? We don't know.

Sure, it's easy to say (in hindsight) that the deceased should never have opened the door, but this is America. We shouldn't have to cower behind our doors at night. I probably would never open the door unless I knew with 100% certainty who was there, but that's just me. And we still don't know what really happened.

quote:

Originally posted by chongosuerte:

quote:

Originally posted by mutedblade:
Chongo,

Am I to understand that regardless of what the majority of us here think, it is perfectly okay for LEO to go to whichever address they feel like to serve an arrest warrant, regardless of whether it is the address for the person listed on the warrant? Seems like this situation could be used as a back door way to game the system by the police!

Here's an example: Goonbury Police Department has a warrant to arrest Joe Don Dufus. Instead of going to his house though, they'd "accidentally" go after a "gun owner" that lives close by. They know there will be guns present in the home, so they've already got justification for shooting the guy dead in the middle of the night, regardless of whether he had it on him or not. The word of a police officer would be the only required evidence in your book. Seems like something out of a bad movie about a 3rd world country.

Come on man. There is so much corruption in towns all across America, this isn't outside the realm of possibility.

Exactly how do you infer that gobbledygook from anything I've posted, in this thread or otherwise?

I'll try.

You responded to me that addresses on arrest warrants are so bad, so unreliable, that it's natural for police to be walking up to doors pretty much anywhere and everywhere near the 'listed' address on the warrant.

His take seems to be, once you accept that as normal, that the listed address on the address warrant really means 'oh somewhere in the neighborhood is OK' that that gives malicious officers cover to wander around and get up to no good, under the guise of serving a warrant.

I'll add, that does seem to be a bit much.