1y ago

No charges for New Mexico officers who knocked on wrong door before fatal shooting

www.bbc.com

Authorities in New Mexico will not seek charges against three police officers involved in a fatal shooting after arriving at the wrong house last year.

Officers in the town of Farmington fired dozens of shots and killed Robert Dotson, 52, because he appeared at the door of his home holding a gun.

At the time, the officers were responding to a domestic violence call from a house across the street.

The Dotson family filed a lawsuit against the department last year.

According to a complaint filed by the family in court, police arrived at the Dotson residence late on 5 April, 2023 and "parked down the street and did not have their lights on".

When Mr Dotson opened his front door holding a weapon, police immediately opened fire, striking him 12 times. Another 19 shots were fired at his wife Kimberly, who was unharmed during the incident. Police later said she opened fire on officers with a pistol.

90 comments

disarm the police. they do not need to be armed their entire shifts. if they approached this house without lethal weapons, how many people would be dead right now?
zero. the answer is zero.
do not let cowards have lethal armament
- Police should have access to weapons, but they should be locked in the car and require remote unlock when they actually need them.
  
  Or maybe leave them to trained professionals they can call for support.
- It's well known in most countries that only hunters and cowards own guns, so are you saying we should disarm everyone bar the hunters?
  
  i believe the police in their normal day to day operation do not need to be lethally armed.
  they turn simple transactions into life threatening events with almost no benefit to the public.
  this is a perfect example. if the police only had, say tasers and this guy comes walkin out with a gun. is he going to run? not possible. do you really think he would just start shooting a block full of police officers? no of course not.
  but the cowardice is part of police training. shoot first, question later and be sure to empty the fucking clip.
  
  Historically speaking, police are both cowards and hunters
If the police are allowed to kill you simply for possessing a gun, you do not have a right to bare arms. They have violated your civil rights.
- bare arms
  Those aren’t the type of guns we’re talking about…
  
  Hah, I'll leave it.
  
  💪
- Did the wrong thing to arrive on a good thing then.
  
  Killing someone for owning a gun is a good thing? Jesus fucking Christ.
- Having a gun on your person while opening the door is not brandishing. Also, there are countless other examples of people getting shot by the police simply for possessing a weapon.
  There is also zero reason to believe that this man was aware the people at his house were police.
pizza delivery guys fuck this up far less and show a higher degree of care and professionalism, while not having guns and power to hide behind
- It's fucked up the pizza delivery people are more professional than cops but here we are. It's sadly a more dangerous job than being a police officer, too. At least, on average.
  
  Police are so inept that they had to create special protections to shield them from being held accountable for their actions legally.
- They apparently were supposed to be responding the domestic dispute but not only did they shoot him 12 fucking times they fired 19 bullets at the supposed victim?
  Why the fuck are they not being charged again?
  They just straight up murder people now with consequences. And like other's have said if they can shoot you for having a gun then we have no right to bare arms and they violent the second amendment.
They took 19 shots at the wife and didn't hit her? Not only are these people disgusting but they can't even do this part of the job fucking right.
- I can do you better. There was a high profile police, er, "shooting" in my town back in the early 2000's that made front page in the papers because four cops fired 204 shots at some guys -- for those keeping score at home, that's four Barney Fifes with three complete magazines, two reloads each out of their issued Glock 17's -- and hit no one.
  So they succeeded in doing nothing but putting holes in a bunch of people's cars, a couple of rowhouses, lampposts, mailboxes, etc., and failed to even so much as wing any of the multiple alleged perps. I mean, they didn't manage to nail any innocent bystanders or people sleeping in their beds or anything for once, either. Ludicrous levels of wanton and irresponsible property damage and potential injury or death dealt to anyone within a radius of who knows how many blocks, not a single care given, for no benefit whatsoever. You know, just business as usual.
  To this day I wonder if there actually were any perps, or if some cops just decided they wanted to shoot up a poor inner city neighborhood for yuks and get away with it.
  
  Something similar happened in NYC except the cops hit a ton of bystanders and then charged the suspect for it as if he'd done it himself.
- We have stormtroopers, but at least stormtroopers look cool or something?
  
  There's a fan theory that they were ordered to miss, at least to miss Luke and Leia.
  
  They fly now??
  Ugh, sorry
- She fired at them. Those were retreating shots.
  
  A more reasonable use for a firearm has never been stated. Random people roll up to your house and murder your husband. Clearest case of self defense there has ever been.
- I did not realize that I will be reading a post of a person who is upset that additional innocent person was not shot dead.
  
  Weird takeaway but okay? Jesus ever living fuck this place is turning into reddit fast. I'm very clearly saying it's pathetic that they are failures at even being killers as well. They can't even be the pieces of shit they want to be right. Not that I'm disappointed that they didn't manage to kill her.
  And you know that. But you just desperately wanted a moral high ground. So I guess clap yourself on the back my man.
  
  19 shots fired at a person without hitting means 19 chances to hit something, or someone, else.
  Bullets don't just vanish when they miss the target.
  These cops have such shit aim, and such shit investigative talent, that they fail at every single metric. They should be in prison, but failing that, they should not be cops.
  
  I don't think anyone's upset she lived, but there have been a lot of cases where officer's inability to aim have added a lot of casualties from hitting random people in their field of fire.
I've been woken up in the middle of the night by angry police who showed up at the wrong house and it's fucking terrifying, but it's a really bad idea to ever answer your door with a gun in your hand. If you feel like you need a gun to open your door you shouldn't be opening the door.
- Not opening the door wouldn't save you. There was a no-knock warrant where a man was woken up when the police had kicked in his door and shined a light in his face. He had a gun next to his bed (I can't remember if he was even holding it). He had been awake something like less than 8 seconds before the cops shot him because they saw the gun.
  
  Ah I think I saw the body cam footage on that one, quite sobering to see.
  
  Sleeping next to a gun sounds like a bad idea too. Unless you're being hunted by assassins or something along those lines. Not that it's that guys fault, because reaching for a weapon when you are startled awake is a completely natural response, but just from a safety perspective that feels like a really terrible place to keep a gun.
- In my experience, cops don't always identify themselves during the knock. They just slam on your door extremely aggressively, and may respond that they're cops if you yell through the door. Nor is there reason to believe them even if they do identify themselves verbally.
  I hate guns, and don't own one. But I would not blame someone for bringing a gun with them after one of those knocks in the middle of the night. Who knows who it could be.
  
  For sure, when they knocked on my door at 4am I was sound asleep and had no idea what was going on. I don't think they ever identified themselves as police, they just kept pounding aggressively on the door. My first instinct was full fight mode, it was a very confusing and terrifying way to wake up. I can definitely see arming yourself in that situation until you figured out who the fuck is pounding on the door in the middle of the night. It's the opening the door while armed part specifically that's a bad idea, that's inherently going to escalate any situation and you don't know who is at your door or whether they are actually a threat so it's not appropriate to be brandishing a gun. Either don't open the door until you know who it is or keep the gun out of sight until you know it's actually needed.
- I won't open the door anyway. The cops have no legitimate reason to be banging on my door, ever, so they can go pack sand. The only two possible reasons for doing so are a wrong address or deliberate fuckery on their part. So I'd rather let them come to me. Preferably to the 3rd story bedroom, the one up the rickety narrow stairs. (Yay for 1920's redneck architecture. For once.)
  Despite all the yelling and threats and bluster they'll inevitably do, if they ain't got a warrant you are not obligated to let them in or even acknowledge their presence. Fuck 'em.
Republicans told me it was Legal to have a Gun in your house and also that we need to Defund Schools to give money to Cops?
Cops in the States do cops in the states things. I'm so tired.
- Yeah but, yeah but see, see though the thing is though, but see he was white this time. So. Y'know. Might make the news. Oh, wait it did.
  Member that time they found all those unmarked graves of people reported missing behind the Jackson Mississippi police station? Member that? Got less coverage than the Star Wars Holiday Special.
must have been that White privilege I keep hearing about

90 comments