SEMPER FI!
No, Mat, not stupid. I also try mightily to not make personal attacks on the internet. But that makes you small, not me. What I am, is that I have been in the same situations and you, demonstrably, have not, or you would not make the statements you do. Shots are not required to come from the residence to force an entry nor does a known hostage situation demand an entry. This was a high risk search warrant and executed as such.
Common sense and normal rules of engagement? If you are not a police officer, who are you to define what the common sense and rules of engagement are? Is there a different set of common sense and rules of engagement that we have missed all these years? Don’t try the old military nonsense with me, been in both places, some thing are interchangeable, some are not. Military learns some things from LE, LE learns some things from the Military. But when it comes down to it, the Military is the business of killing people with maximum violence every time. M26’s instead of flashbangs. Unfortunately, some misguided people have tried to make the military adopt more police methods and it hurts the service. The police don’t want to take lives, but sometimes they must.
Excuse me, but if someone is sighting a rifle down on you, and you aren’t squeezing off rounds, you are clearly not for this business. You and others act like these officer went into the house silent as thieves and shot the man as soon as they saw the gun. That’s the bailiwick of Special Operations, who are not asking anyone to surrender. It don’t work like that Mat, they are not trained like that. It’s called a dynamic entry, not a stealthy or surreptious entry. It is loud by design, from the knock and announce to the flashbangs, to the orders to lay down or show themselves to the almost certain order to drop the weapon NOW!. You don’t get a second chance, them’s one of the rules of engagement. I didn’t write them, there was an engagement long ago where a suspect was given too many chances to drop the his weapon,he didn’t buy it, killed some officers, and the rule was written the next day. It was probably right around the time the Code of Hammurabi was written.
One chance. To be perfectly blunt and honest, they are not even required to give a warning, if in their best estimation that a warning would have given the suspect an opportunity to fire, endangering themselves or others, then a warning is not required. The best chance for fairness is in court, it’s not while pointing guns at police.
Magazines, not clips.
You have only a lawyer prepared statement purportedly given by the wife that this man was still breathing. They are expected to lie and lose nothing by it. It is a common practice to enflame passions and the media encourages it. If none of it pans out, they shrug their shoulders and blame the victim, saying, “hey that’s what she told me or led me to believe. I’m just the mouthpiece.”
None here know how many rounds hit him, the coroner does though. Wait for his report. BTW, are you a forensics expert or Television trained because you don’t know where those rounds impacted.
Your weight of evidence statement. Equally, if not more plausible, is that this man was involved in criminal activity hence the need for police investigation and search warrant which was obtained in accordance of the 4th Amendment of the Constitution. They almost certainly did not fabricate a reason to get in this man’s door.
They will not be fired, Pima County will certainly pay something out, (hush money) the lawyers get fed, (that’s what they live for, the could give a whit about the victim) and no one on here will remember or care when this finally is resolved.
Part of what I am pointing out is the media has played on some of the passions here, very skillfully I might add, (Marine, Father, Employed, what’s not to love, right?) and got the expected emotional response. They don’t want you to think critically, to wonder why those police where even there. I know also from bitter experience that they revel in the throwing the Apple of Discord among interest groups. They know the police are going to be secretive for awhile (sometimes good, sometimes bad) and play that against the public fears of government. I understand the public’s need for information, you simply cannot be immediately transparent on everything involved because it has and will screw the pooch on due process for all involved parties.