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Here is the scenario if you combine the video and the wife’s statements:

Guy in bed. Siren or car alarm goes off for 8 seconds. 0+14 Doesn’t pay much attention, but wife shows up saying she’s scared.

0+20 Rolls out of bed. Grabs rifle and tells the wife to hide.

0+28 Leaves bedroom.

0+30 End of hall, looking at the door.

Between 0+20 & 0+30, the police are saying something...identifying themselves, but hard to understand from the guy standing outdoors & 20 feet away. During this time, the guy is probably in his bedroom & talking with his wife. He’s probably been up for 10 seconds or so. Odds of hearing the cops? Not great.

0+33 Door opens from kicks.

0+40 Cops open fire.

What was the guy doing between 0+33 & 0+40? Well, he’s probably been awake for under 30 seconds. He probably been out of the bedroom for 10 seconds. The safety is on.

At 0+40, the cops open fire. The guy has not shot, but they see a man with a gun and the cops react.

For the sake of argument, let’s suppose this happened to me. The wife wakes me and tells me someone is at the door trying to get in. There was a car alarm or siren - don’t know which. I’d grab my 44 and go to look, and would probably get to the door about the time the cops came thru.

I would probably start to raise my gun, realize they were cops, and be lowering it at the same time the bullets start hitting me.

FWIW, I think the Marine was probably involved in crime. But if it happened at my house, I’d be just as dead, and we don’t normally give the death penalty to even violent criminals.

That is where my problem lies: Combine forced entry with a homeowner inclined to defend himself, and you have death by search warrant. And that is unacceptable in America.

Very good points.

The whole thing looks to me like incredible incompetence, excessive force, and wanton disregard of the lives of any and all inside the house, including the wife and kid.

Let’s say the lead-up investigation showed that the deceased was selling pot AND was likely to be armed. But he has no history of violence or even anything beyond a traffic ticket. Still, you (the arresting officers) have to be careful, right?

So, what the *expletive deleted* are the SWAT team members doing? It’s as if they did everything they could to guarantee a shootout. Yet if the deceased HAD been ready for them, as another poster has pointed out, he’d have drilled 2 or 3 of the officers, all grouped together so conveniently, before they got him.

Either the guy is deemed to be highly dangerous and you go in with REAL surprise, QUICKLY (and maybe put stun grenades through all windows?), or, you have a freakin’ bullhorn, announce yourself clearly and repeatedly over a period of a few minutes from safe cover, and give the guy a chance to see your several marked vehicles and overwhelming force, and surrender.

Incidentally, relevant from a different angle: http://www.semissourian.com/story/1712037.html