C’mon. Where are they? Where’s the holster-sniffers to explain this away, how the cops were “just doing their jobs” and “it was most important for these two public employees to go home at the end of their shift?”
The criticism as to “wrong number” by so many posters isn’t always as reasonable as it sounds. Back when streets were laid out on a grid, it would have been, but that just isn’t true today. Streets wind around, and odd/even numbering, and for that matter what street you are on changes unpredictably. This neighborhood is one of that type.
However, in this case I looked the house up on Street View. The mailbox has a number, and the curb is numbered at both the sidewalk and the driveway. It’s actually an unusually well-marked nehghborhood. It shouldn’t have been terribly difficult for them to figure out which house was which.
There are no streetlights in the area, and the garage in question is entered from the back of the home. IOW, the driveway wraps around the house, so the cops were in his backyard when they shot him.
What a tragedy!
I think the best takeaway from this is the old saw about never pointing a gun at anything you don’t intend to kill. An extension would be not to unnecessarily insert yourself into a situation where an armed confrontation might result.
IOW, even if you have a gun it’s not always a good idea to go looking for trouble. In some circumstances, such as this one, especially if you have a gun.
I find the notion that “they identified themselves as police” problematic as a justification. It’s dark, uniforms can’t be seen, and armed men are yelling at you. Possibly you don’t have your hearing aid in. In all likelihood they pointed their flashlights at him and blinded him. It is not at all unreasonable for you to react by pointing your gun at the shouters.
Unfortunately, once you do point your gun at them (if that’s what really happened) it’s entirely reasonable for the cops to shoot first.
The absolute need to shoot first in a confrontation at close range means the chance of tragedy goes WAY up when both sides are armed.
I think the cops in this case should be charged with whatever the homeowner would have been charged with had he shot one or both of them.