They were given permission by a judge to use reasonable means to enter the house if not granted IMMEDIATE entry. That means breaking the door down if another less intrusive method would not suffice or such a method would endanger officers or allow for the destruction of evidence.
If they were granted a no-knock entry, which I doubt, since they have been going out of favor, they could have gone right in but those have led to these kind of situations and just not that common anymore. They are if the suspect has a history of resisting law enforcement and is highly EXPECTED to engage officers on sight. That does not mean the SWAT team stands there waiting for the occupant to destroy evidence or formulate a plan to ambush or escape. Search warrants call for a reasonable amount of time granted to the homeowner to open the door when summoned and ordered to do so. Reasonable can be a little subjective but about 20 seconds is what I am used to seeing. Our teams flashbang before entry and turn the overhead lights upon the knock and announce. Gangs don’t have that capability so little chance of argument of mistake. Not to mention that people who are home invaded by gangs portraying themselves as police are other criminals who are running stash houses of dope or money. They are not Joe and Jane Average Citizen.
All those officers went in shouting “Police, we have a search warrant, put down any weapons and show your hands, etc.”
A responsible gun owner DOES NOT point a rifle at the police officers, all of which are saying the above. They also don’t hold on to it when told to drop it. You want to believe they murdered this guy, I want to give my fellow officers the benefit of the doubt that they did what they are trained to do, gave the decedent some type of chance to surrender and he did not.
So tell me, what’s a reasonable amount of time to allow someone to point a rifle at you before you shoot? 1 second, two, five? All of which is more than enough to shoot your and your colleagues. Anyone with a bit of firearms knowledge knows how destructive rifles are. You can’t muck around.
Since you want to question their competency, tell everyone how you would have done it better.