Police Shoot 92 Year Old Woman. Here's my take, what is yours?

• Police arrive at a 92 year old woman’s house, in plain clothes rather than police uniforms.
  • For all I know, Sting may have been out there.
• They yell through the door “Open up, it’s the Police.”
  • I know that I see a bunch of people with guns, who don’t look anything like police outside my door, the last thing I’m going to do is open up, not to mention this woman had people pretending to be police try to break in before.
    
• The police, not dressed at all like cops, break down the door.  The woman opens fire, and hits 3 of them, before getting shot down.
  • As far as I’m concerned, if the police had no reason to be there, which they didn’t (they didn't find any drugs) , the woman had no reason to believe these were real police.  You break into someone’s house, not at all wth the appearance of police, with your only proof of being the police being claiming to be the police vocally, as far as I’m concerned the owner of the house has every right to defend their property.

I’d also like to add some comments from a digg.com post I found highly insightful.

Comment by anonymoustroll

Yeah... that's pretty funny... she tagged each one of them (and I bet they took a good long pause trying to figure out "what the hell?" before gunning her down)... too bad she wasn't a better shot.

...but here's the thing: this stinks to high heaven; here's why:

> had a legal warrant and "knocked and announced" before they forced open the door

1 - every last one of us knows that "knock and announce" means "knock with the door breacher" and "announce your presence with a flash-bang". Perhaps it need to be "knock, announce and identify yourself to the upstanding citizen that you're prepared to shoot" (and give the citizen time to verify your credentials). Innocent until proven guilty pretty much ends when the warrant is served.

> Kathryn Johnson, was the only person home at the time, and had lived there for about 17 years.

2 - cops need to be less tactical and more strategic. Perhaps if someone had done their intelligence homework and looked at the power/phone/water/gas/cable/etc. bills they'd see *WHO* they were about to take into custody. Seems to me that they just don't know what the fsck is going on and prepare for the worse (and guess what... they get the worse outcome... surprise). You know, those warrants for paper searches aren't as sexy as the "real thing", but maybe there'd be three cops without bullets in them and one grandma who's still alive if they'd taken the time to do their homework.

> Neighbors and relatives said it must have been a case of mistaken identity.

3 - well, you know what they say... hindsight is 20/20. Good thing they had the "right" address. This is what happens when good people live in bad neighborhoods, etc. etc, cliches ad infiniutum.

> I'm sure she panicked when they kicked that door down

Don't discount the possibility that they may have been fed incorrect information (never actually trust anonymous/CI intelligence sources... always verify, cross check and do your due diligence). Obviously they weren't going off any type of reasonable intelligence. So, gun nuts beware, if I want you out of my neighborhood, all I have to do is dime you out for some heinous crime from the anonymous comfort of a payphone and a pseudonym.

Comment by theblooms

don't blame her for shooting back at all. She had been on the receiving end of criminals posing as cops many times in the past. Your home is your castle, and in America (at least in the majority of states that respect the Bill of Rights) you are allowed to defend your castle by any means necessary.

This whole thing with cops executing warrants like this has GOT to stop. Cops are supposed to be civilians. In this day in age, they are not. They are paramilitary with fully automatic weapons and tanks. Yes, tanks. We have all seen them. Police departments in the US have more tanks than most nations. Fucking ridiculous. If a situation is so god-damed dangerous that you need a tank to serve a warrant, you need to call the National Guard in. Seriously.

In even the WORST possible situation, you can always surround a house and wait for the bad guy to come out. He WILL come out eventually.

These 3 cops need to be prosecuted for murder. Mistaken identity is NO excuse for busting down someone's door and shooting them. I GUARANTEE if someone busts down my door, they will be met with a hail of lead. How the hell do I know who they are? People impersonate cops all the time.

May this lady Rest in Peace. I will pray for her and her family.