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I do not dislike cops, SWAT or drug teams and if I did I would not have worked with my local department for the past 22 years, but I do dislike the assumption that you have made.
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I must have missed your love of the police in all the negative things you were saying about cops, municipal SWAT and drug teams, etc. After all, why would you go out of your way to get on a soapbox and monologue about all these things with which you have issues when they have absolutely nothing to do with the story being discussed?
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Police officers serving warrants have a responsibility to know where the [bleep] they're going. The deputies (or their superiors, if they were dispatched to an incorrect address) are 100 percent at fault.
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As noted, these deputies were not serving a warrant. They were involved in trying to track down suspects who tried to kill another person earlier in the evening. They located one suspect's motorcycle and it was parked in front of an apartment and so they knocked on the door of the apartment. They weren't dispatched to the wrong address. If they were dispatched, they were dispatched to the address where the motorcycle was parked.
Were they at the correct apartment where the suspect was? Nope. They didn't know where the suspect was, but they knocked on the residence closest to the motorcycle. Maybe the suspect was there or maybe the occupants could tell the cops where the suspect lived if the occupants were familiar with the motorcycle's owner. I see no harm in that action.
If they are lookiing for the suspect and knock on a resident's door, should they shout out that they are the cops? Well if the suspect is nearby, then they have likely given him ample warning and time to get away.
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I think some of y'all are buying into the media hype on the incident. Just like when y'all don't like it when the media throws out hot button words such as "assault weapons" and the like, they are doing the same thing here with "wrong house" and "wrong person."
The deputies did not shoot the wrong person. They did not shoot the suspect for whom they were looking, but if their account is correct, they definitely shot the person they believed they needed to shoot at the time and that was the person pointing a gun at them.
Were they at the wrong house? They had no way to know until they knocked on the door. It was the location where the motorcycle was parked. So why not knock on the closest door?
It wasn't a bunch of paramilitary city cops and they were not serving a warrant. They were simply deputies following up on leads and when knocking on doors, law enforcement officers certainly don't always yell out who they are before the door is opened.
Did they shoot too hastily? That is certainly possible. Deputy spokesman Herrell states we should put ourselves in the deputies shoes. They were expecting to find the suspect and so when faced with the gun, took action.
http://www.wesh.com/news/central-flo...g/-/index.html
While pointing a gun at law enforcement is never a good idea, it does happy when they knock on doors inthe middle of the night which is usually followed by a lot of shouting as to who they are, etc. They don't have their guns drawn and they aren't ready to shoot the occupant immediately, but in this case, it sounds like did have their guns out and were ready to fight and so were set off by seeing Scott with is gun that was reportedly pointed at them. In other words, they anticipated encountering a violent criminal and when that was apparently confirmed in their own minds by the gun, they took action. Had the cops been going door-to-door in the middle of the night trying to track down a lost child and knocked on Scott's door, for example, they certainly would not have been ready to shoot when the door opened.
If Scott pointed a gun at the cops, they are probably more than justified in believing that Scott had opportunity, ability, and intent to do them harm. They would in other situations as well. Even so, I do think this shooting could have been avoided. That does not mean that the deputies were at fault criminally, but based on Herrell's statements, it does sound like the family would have a good argument for a wrongful death suit.