Another SWAT-style raid, another death.

[KBCraig]

I guess we have the "War On Playstations" now. No guns found in the home. This one will be doubly interesting, as the victim's father is a personal injury and wrongful death attorney. You'll notice the prosecutor has "reach out" to him. 

http://www.newsobserver.com/1419/story/518014.html

Gun picture alerted police
The online image made UNC-Wilmington police fear violence before the search, killing at home

Mandy Locke, Staff Writer
WILMINGTON - When police came to search Peyton Strickland's rented house for stolen PlayStation 3 video games, they feared they might find him amid a small arsenal of firearms, according to a search warrant released late Monday.

Police found snapshots on the Internet of a man they suspected to be Strickland's robbery partner posing with what appeared to be an assault rifle, pistols and a shotgun. A detective had seen a car belonging to the man, Ryan David Mills, 20, parked at Strickland's rental home, according to the search warrant, which also included two images of young men with guns.

When UNC-Wilmington campus police headed to the home Friday, they brought reinforcements picked from the New Hanover Sheriff's Office's elite, highly trained and heavily armed emergency responders unit, Sheriff Sid Causey said Monday morning.

Causey said campus police thought the search and arrest would be "high risk." Causey's men agreed to force their way in, then let UNCW police look for stolen goods, the sheriff said Monday.

The search didn't go as planned.

Deputies shot Strickland, an 18-year-old Durham native attending Cape Fear Community College, in the foyer of his home. A bullet in the head killed him; at least one more struck his chest, according to the state medical examiner's office. His German shepherd, Blaze, was also shot to death; at least four other bullets riddled the home's front hallway.

Strickland's roommate, Mike Rhoton, told the Star-News of Wilmington on Saturday that deputies kicked in the door and shot at his friend. He said Strickland might have come to the door with a wireless game controller in his hand.

It all started Nov. 17, when Justin Raines, a UNCW freshman from Apex, headed to a friend's dormitory with two $641 PlayStation 3 video games he and his twin brother had camped out at Wal-Mart to buy. Two men accosted him, and one hit him on the head with some sort of blunt object; his twin brother said Justin was also bruised in the ribs.

A surveillance video camera in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart captured where police think the robbers began tailing Raines and showed two young men getting into a gold Pontiac, according to the search warrant. Campus police sent the video over e-mail to every professor and student.

A tipster eventually called UNCW police informing on Strickland and Mills, according to the search warrant. Police matched the driver's license photos of the men to their images in the surveillance video. Campus police began staking out Strickland's Long Leaf Acres Drive home.

Mills lived elsewhere, but the search warrant indicates he might be hanging out at Strickland's home. The online photos of Mills made police suspect he could be armed, and UNCW police had received information that Mills was known to carry a firearm, the warrant stated.

The warrant also pointed out that Strickland had been charged with assault in September after a UNCW student complained Strickland punched him so hard that his jaw shattered.

The court papers showed that after the shooting officers took from the house four marijuana water pipes, and several bullet fragments and shell casings among other items.

Officials offered no explanation Monday about what prompted deputies to fire Friday night. Three deputies have been placed on paid leave pending a review by State Bureau of Investigation agents.

Mills has been charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a deadly weapon, and breaking and entering a motor vehicle.

Strickland would have faced the same charges.

New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David said Monday that he would "go where the truth leads."

"No one is above the law, and no one is beneath its protection," David said.

The prosecutor has reached out to Strickland's father, Don Strickland, a personal injury and wrongful death attorney in Raleigh. David said he planned to meet Strickland's parents today.

At the modest brick house Strickland shared with his hometown roommates, friends gathered Monday evening to remember the lean boy who had a knack for mechanics. Teenage girls dropped bouquets of flowers into the 1964 motorboat Strickland rebuilt. The young people clutched candles and choked back sobs as one young man sang Bob Marley's "Redemption Song."

[KBCraig]

http://www.wral.com/news/10467921/detail.html

Deadly Force Examined In Durham Teen's Shooting Death

POSTED: 12:36 pm EST December 5, 2006
UPDATED: 8:41 pm EST December 5, 2006

DURHAM, N.C. -- Did New Hanover County sheriff's deputies comply with state law governing the use of deadly force when they shot and killed a local college student while serving a warrant for his arrest?

The local district attorney and State Bureau of Investigation is looking into the matter, in which Peyton Brooks Strickland, 18, of Durham, was shot multiple times. Six deputies accompanied University of North Carolina at Wilmington police to execute the warrant and to search Strickland's house.

Strickland and a friend, Ryan David Mills, were wanted on armed robbery charges in connection with the Nov. 17 theft of two PlayStation3 consoles from a UNC-W student.

Strickland, who witnesses said was unarmed, died from a gunshot wound to the head.

Three officers, who are part of a 23-member emergency response team, were placed on paid leave while the case is under investigation. The team is similar to what is commonly referred to as a SWAT team, an acronym for "special weapons and tactics."

The sheriff's office will not release the names of the deputies.

New Hanover County Sheriff Sid Causey called the need for deputies to back up UNC-W officers a safety issue, but did not specify what the safety issue was.

Another search warrant stated that Strickland had a previous felony assault on his record from August in which he allegedly broke a man's jaw.

In a search warrant justifying the need for the high-risk tactics, officers said Mills, who lived at a different address, was known to carry a firearm and was pictured on the Internet with assault rifles, shotguns and pistols.

"The problem is that intelligence is often imperfect, and sometimes you don't know what's on the other side of that locked door," said retired police Detective Chris Morgan, who worked at the Raleigh Police Department for nearly 30 years.

Although each law enforcement agency in North Carolina has its own policies regarding the use of physical force upon another person, every officer is bound by state statutes on when it is legal to use deadly force.

The statute, in part, states that officers can use deadly physical force to defend themselves or a third party, to arrest a person who poses an imminent danger to others or to prevent the escape of a convicted felon.

Morgan said it is important for law-enforcement officers to understand the law.

"You always plan on encountering, at least, the worst-case scenario," he said.

Morgan said that more people resist arrest, which means many officers go into raids with a big show of force.

"They do what very few people do," he said. "They make life-and-death decisions -- decisions with life-and-death consequences -- in a split second."

Friday's shooting is not the first in which the sheriff's office's emergency response team was involved in a fatal shooing. In April 2005, Deputy Donald Warnick shot a man during an early-morning standoff. The SBI found Warnick did nothing inappropriate and no charges were filed.

Statewide, in the past five years, there have been 171 police shootings, 65 of which were fatal.

Meanwhile, Strickland's family members and the Wilmington community are seeking answers about what happened to cause officers to fire multiple times.

Strickland's roommate, Mike Rhoton, told a Wilmington newspaper that on the night of the shooting, he and Strickland were playing video games when Strickland went to answer a knock at the door. Strickland might have had a game controller in his hand when he went to the door, Rhoton said.

According to a search warrant, bullet fragments were recovered from the house after the shooting, as well as drug paraphernalia. The warrant, however, did not list any firearms.

New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David has not said whether Strickland had a weapon or whether authorities thought he had a weapon.

David has declined to discuss the details of the case but has said that it is his priority to determine whether the actions taken by authorities were justified.

"No one is above the law, and no one is beneath its protection," David said Monday.

On Tuesday, he met with Strickland's parents at their Durham home to brief them on the case and to assure them that the case is being handled properly.

According to family spokesman Don Beskind, the family appreciated David's visit.

Strickland was a studying welding at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington. His funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Durham.

[David]

If they were so concerned about the guns, why didn't the search warrent even mention them.  Murderers. 

[error]

North Carolina is one place I don't ever want to go again.

Did you notice, from the articles:

If you're a convicted felon, running away from the cops, the cops can shoot you in the back.

Very friendly, welcoming place.

[Russell Kanning]

Government thugs shoot people in the back all over the place. They did it here recently.

[error]

Government thugs shoot people in the back all over the place. They did it here recently.

True. But it's not often that they let the press openly admit it like that.

[Spencer]

Whatever happened to staking a place out and waiting for the person to leave before arresting them?  They did it with Aldrich Ames (the CIA spy).

They could have just looked up the kid's friggin' class schedule and gone when he was in class if they were so concerned about him.

The officers who fired should be charged with murder; you can bet that a citizen wouldn't get the benefit of the doubt.

[aries]

NC now requires a government permit to buy kegs regardless of age