The family of a man fatally shot in New Mexico by police officers responding to the wrong house sued the department for wrongful death and other claims in federal court, according to a complaint filed on Friday in the U.S. District Court of New Mexico.
Robert Dotson, 52, was shot and killed in the doorway of his house in Farmington after local police officers opened fire after they said they saw he had a gun.
Police knocked on Dotson’s door at 11:30 p.m. on April 5, according to the complaint filed in court. Dotson grabbed his gun from the top of the refrigerator and went to open the front door. The complaint says “police vehicles were parked down the street and did not have their lights on.”
Three officers standing outside the door immediately opened fire, according to the complaint. Dotson was hit by 12 bullets. His wife, Kimberly, wearing just her robe, came down the stairs to find out what happened, the complaint says, and the officers fired an additional 19 bullets at her but missed.
New Mexico State Police issued a statement saying that Farmington police were responding to a domestic violence call but went to the wrong address.
I agree with most of what you said but I disagree here. Like I would love for it to be easy to subdue “bad guys” but taking down someone non lethally and without any other major risk factors involved while subduing them is a bit unrealistic, primarily when they are armed(either with a firearm or any other kind of weapon). I want to see every “bad guy”(or man who isn’t even involved) see their day in court but we don’t live in a fantasy land where you can knock someone out without any ill effects like in the movies. Like many of us are talking behind a screen, there is a major problem with cop training and I 100% support them having to train far more but we have to keep in mind death can come in a fraction of a second and people are going to be on edge because of that. Again I already brought up my problems with the warrior training since they do heavily focus on this aspect and its way too focused on, they seriously see footage of cops hesitating and getting killed, so they program cops to always be afraid of every interaction but I just don’t think we should completely discount death can come in a mere moment. In America, there are literally more guns than fucking people here and that is part of the problem.
That attitude of “sometimes they have to” is the reason why there are serial killers on police forces in the US.
There are literal gangs in the LA SD. They have tattoos based on how many people they’ve killed, and they get away with that shit because “sometimes they ‘have to’” .
So no. If you kill someone as a cop, that’s it. You’re no longer a cop.
If it was actually justified, you get counseling and job training for something else, or maybe an early retirement in rare cases. If it wasn’t, then you go to prison for murder.
Also, don’t arm the regular cops. If you need a gun, you can check one out, or get it out of your patrol car’s locked compartment.
Cops should be given zero trust in this, because they’ve always instantly abused that trust.