That seems to be the weak point in the process. In story after story that I have read, some anonymous informant- apparently immune from consequence- always seems to be the catalyst for this kind of thing. Raid goes bad- it's the wrong house and somebody who is often just sitting around the house gets killed- for nothing.
I'm not sure where we ought to be heading with this. There's no question in my mind that there are bad-news types who need to be taken down, and that the object is to get the evidence and the suspect at the same time and the same place- so that people who really are a problem can be taken out of circulation for some period of time, as detrmined by due process- such as it is. Cops ought not die for doing their jobs.
The other side of it appears to be a case like this. Joe Blow is asleep in his home, the door gets kicked in in his kid's room, he fires a weapon, and now he's going to the needle.
I talked with a couple of cop friends of mine about this. After the anger was past, there was general agreement that, given the story as we know it at this time, Maye is only guilty of Negligent Homicide. He fired before properly identifying his target, and that he had no intent to shoot or kill a cop. The fact that he grounded his weapon when there was no longer any doubt that it was the police, suggests that that was his intent.
My personal opinion at this point, given the sketchy information that we have available to us, is that Maye fired in a panic, not knowing that his target was a cop. That act, firing in a panic where it results in killing someone who is (let's assume for the sake of argument) on lawful business- constitutes Negiligent Homicide.
If this is true, then the warrant itself comes into question, and becomes the object of argument.