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.
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.
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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.
Just depends on the setting.
Small kids at home? Yeah that’s dumb AF.
Living alone? Who cares where it is, but concealing/securing it would help prevent it from being stolen if your house is broken into.
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.
Immediately call 911 and don’t answer the door I guess. Get in an interior room and lay down on the floor in your underwear.
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.