Atlanta-area police officer shot after responding to wrong home...whoops!

originally posted by: Sublimecraft
a reply to: Vasa Croe

also, mandatory body cameras?

Didn't care about the rest of that post, but you get a star for this alone. Hell yes!

I don't understand why the cop's go to the wrong address so often.
Even the pizza man doesn't get the address wrong as much as the police, what does that show you?

originally posted by: JHumm
Even the pizza man doesn't get the address wrong as much as the police, what does that show you?

It shows me that pizza delivery drivers can read maps better than law enforcement dispatch officers can program and trained professional LEO's can execute.

A tradesman knows to measure twice and cut once, you'd think the cops would check that house number before they raid wouldn't you?

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Bout damn time we humiliate the police showing up to the wrong house instead of them humiliating us! You go homeowner!

I think police need to stop doing house calls. Why is it ok for them to risk their lives on bad information. With people and the right to bear arms this incident could have ended much worse over nothing! This way we can end one stream of cop bashing. I don't know, I'm just sick of people always blaming the cops for #.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

So…cops get wrong house, enter and apparently identify themselves upon entering according to the story, proceed to kill the owners dog and get in a shootout with the owner.

Whatever happened to, "This is the police, we got the place surrounded, come out with your hands up"?

originally posted by: HawkeyeNation
I think police need to stop doing house calls. Why is it ok for them to risk their lives on bad information. With people and the right to bear arms this incident could have ended much worse over nothing! This way we can end one stream of cop bashing. I don't know, I'm just sick of people always blaming the cops for #.

They catch hell when they deserve it.
Idiots just plain idiots.
If you dont have an address to start with, you dont go killing every thing that moves.
I hope it was friendly fire, just reward.
Karma baby!

a reply to: Vasa Croe
I tried to post this story earlier but couldn't get my mobile device to cooperate. Be that as it may, is anyone really surprised that this finally happened?

Of course, the details are under investigation, but this sort of thing just seemed to be a foregone inevitability. I can easily imagine the scenario. A homeowner minding his own business, maybe had the TV on with the volume up, maybe the dog was barking & he didn't hear "Police!" being yelled at the rear door.The next thing he knows someone is coming thru the door, the girlfriend is freaking & he grabs his gun to defend himself, his woman, & his belongings in his house. Shots ring out, the dog dies, & homeowner & cop end up in the hospital, thankfully not the morgue in this case. It's a sorry situation which could happen to any one of us.

I'm not 100% anti-cop, but this one most definitely lies squarely on their doorstep. Yes, they were responding to a report of a possible break-in, but without a verified address, they opt to enter a home which may or may not be the correct one because they found a door unlocked. Is that standard procedure now? I leave my doors unlocked all the time as I still live somewhere that I can, yet a unlocked door doesn't mean a crime has occurred. Whatever happened to knock first, ask if any assistance is needed before the guns come out? (Yeah, I know, I'm still clinging to my Mayberry bubble. 😜)

I can guarantee that anyone, cop or not, would get the same treatment if they were to waltz up in my place too. All my friends & family know my door is open, my four hounds are in the house, & if I happen to be in the back part, they better yell loud & wait for me to yell back before stepping a toe past the threshold, or it could be a bad day all around.

I'll be keeping an eye on this story to see if the homeowner is charged. If he is, then that will be the biggest tragedy of all, but then again, I wouldn't be surprised in the least.

a reply to: HawkeyeNation

IT, WAS. THEIR. FAULT. WRONG HOUSE. WRONG PERSON.

What about that is" always bashing cops for sh** "?

THEY are responsible for getting it right. THEY are the ones killing and maiming innocent people and everything else in sight, just because they feel threatened.
Pepper spray would have worked. Tazer. I've made hostile dogs go away just by yelling at them, so why shoot them?

originally posted by: JHumm
I don't understand why the cop's go to the wrong address so often.
Even the pizza man doesn't get the address wrong as much as the police, what does that show you?

Yeah, that.
And the pizza man doesn't shoot your dog, and he doesn't shoot you.
All for minimum wage and lousy tips.

a reply to: Sublimecraft


I agree.
It's a damn shame that police can't read house numbers .
And if the homeowner didn't have a gun then the cop coming in the front got scared and shot his buddy coming in the back. Bunch of morons. ...

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Vasa Croe

So…cops get wrong house, enter and apparently identify themselves upon entering according to the story, proceed to kill the owners dog and get in a shootout with the owner.

Whatever happened to, "This is the police, we got the place surrounded, come out with your hands up"?

Exactly....unless there is some sort of hostage situation inside, why are they even going in when they can just surround a house and figure out if the person actually IS a criminal or not? Are they worried about evidence being destroyed? If that is the case then I would say they didn't have enough evidence to go in, in the first place.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Are they worried about evidence being destroyed? If that is the case then I would say they didn't have enough evidence to go in, in the first place.

They are more worried about themselves. Sneaking in is cheaper than mounting an operation and waiting people out (they could call up on the phone, too) and they are so used to having the legal (not letter of the lawful) support to do what they want. This is the risk addressed in the constitution about 'reasonable security of persons and effects' and the 'kings soldiers in private homes'.

originally posted by: Vasa CroeSo...cops get wrong house, enter and apparently identify themselves upon entering according to the story, proceed to kill the owners dog and get in a shootout with the owner.

Here's the kicker. Even if the police were responding to the right address and the dog was aggressive, I don't think there is a loving pet owner in the world who would rather the cops stopped a burglary in their house at the expense of their own dog.

I'd rather my dog survived than my television...

This is a real shame all the way around, and the homeowner I am pretty sure did what he/she had to do.

Most of the the reports right now are saying that the officer who was shot, was shot by another police officer.

WSB Atlanta, the local ABC affiliate has this posted on a link at their site.

WSB Comments

My friends brother was the one that originally called the police. Here is what he had to say.
9 hrs · Atlanta, GA · Shaking trying to type this right now. I was out walking my dog Diego. I live on a dead end street, walking towards the cul-de-sac. There is a man a ways in front of me (saw him walk into the neighborhood) that walks to the farthest house at the end of the street, knocks on the front door, and then kind of just stands in the front yard for a few mins. Seems a little sketch considering I have seen the house owner before and it was't him and there have been several reported break-ins down that way. I gave him the benefit of the doubt however (maybe he walked to the store, locked out, etc) and turned around and started walking back towards my house. Diego stops to sniff something and I turn around and now the guy is nowhere to be seen. I then hear a loud sound and then dogs barking. I stand around a second and don't see anyone come out. Kind of concerned at this point I call 911 and describe the house at the end of the cul-de-sac as well as the 50 year old black male and what he was wearing. I also told them that I wasn't sure anything was actually going on, and I wasn't trying to get anyone in trouble, but I felt like something wasn't right. A few minutes later I am getting back to the house (opposite the cul-de-sac, towards the entrance of our street) in front of my front door, when I heard 5 or 6 gunshots very close by and heard a woman screaming. Turned around and saw blue police lights already flashing and people yelling. I fumbled my keys and went inside, terrified. About a min or two later I peek my head outside and see one of my neighbors about 3 houses down (opposite direction from my walk) holding his leg and yelling something to the effect of "You killed my dog!" and "You shot me in my own house! Meanwhile the wife of the man was clutching their one year old child, hysterically walking down the street to a neighbors house. More cops come in, shotguns blazing. Cops running everywhere at this point. Meanwhile the wife is crying and telling the neighbors across from me what had happened. The frantic young wife was obviously furious and scared as she described cops coming in their back door and shooting her husband and shooting and killing their dog. An officer stayed with the man (white, young 30s) while he was still up the street in his own driveway, clutching his leg where he had been shot by the officer. According to neighbors during the chaos, an officer accidentally shot another officer. Both were taken away from the scene in an ambulance. I was later interviewed by a detective and provided them my full testimony since my 911 call was the call that the police were responding to. the Associated Press who requested to talk to me on the phone. (They were able to reach me because Ronnie my girlfriend was not able to get home after work and was talking to me on the phone outside of the neighborhood and the reporter asked to talk to me.) I did this because already on the news they were spinning the story. There was a report of a "manhunt" and a search for a "suspect". The "suspect" (or at least the suspicious person I called the cops on at the other end of the neighborhood) came walking back up to the crime scene shortly after. After speaking to him I realized that he was the person I had seen and he said he was trying to get someone to pay him for cutting their grass. I feel awful because I explicitly said on the 911 call that I was unsure if anything was actually going on but I had a bad feeling after hearing the loud noise and dogs barking, especially with all the recent break-ins. The cops actually never interviewed him (which at that point I don't think it mattered because it seemed pretty clear he hadn't stolen something or done anything wrong and walked up the street to a crime scene to talk about it). I am writing this partly as catharsis because I feel terrible that this all happened as a result. I'm also writing this because the news and media are already spinning this story to say that a police officer was shot in the line of duty while responding to a burglary call. While I give them credit for owning up to the fact that it was the wrong house (albeit presumably after I had given testimony to Associated Press), what they fail to highlight in this clickbait link is that this man who was sitting in his own house watching a movie with his wife was shot in the leg and his dog was murdered in his own house with his new baby in the house. The story is not "Let's all feel sympathetic for the cop that just killed a family's dog and and shot the unarmed homeowner in his own home." I want to say first off that I know a cops job is very hard and I respect the job and the men and women serving when they do it the right way. This was NOT the right way. I explicitly said a house at the end of the cul-de-sac yet the media said the house "matched the description". I never even gave them an address. If you hear news telling you different they are manipulating the story.

Apparently it was copied from a blog or website from the guy who initially called the cops and lives on the street.

Edit to add: I've tried finding the original source for that paste job at WSB, but can't as of yet.



GBI Press Release

originally posted by: nfflhome


I hope it was friendly fire, just reward.
Karma baby!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!!
Couldn't have called it better.

for you sir/madam.

a reply to: retiredTxn

And even better than that the homeowner/dog owner survived, was relatively minorly injured, and will live to enjoy the MASSIVE FINANCIAL SETTLEMENT he will surely be awarded.

a reply to: jefwane
Thanks for posting that info.
The GBI confirms that the homeowner shot no one AND that the cops shot one of their own.

Trigger-happy much?

The shaky part of the GBI release is that the cops say that they tried to contact the occupants of the house but no reply, so they entered an unlocked back door.
I have trouble believing this.

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: jefwane

The shaky part of the GBI release is that the cops say that they tried to contact the occupants of the house but no reply, so they entered an unlocked back door.
I have trouble believing this.

Same here....

a reply to: jefwane

Appreciate the info. From what I've read in other sources, the homeowner owns a media company. I don't know what kind, but I have a hunch this isn't going to play out well for the Atlanta PD.

Citizen- I thought it was 'see something, say something.'
Cop - I thought it was 'see something, shoot something.'

Popcorn anyone? The new Keystone Kops are in town.