There are a lot of ‘teachable points’ in this story:

In their complaint in Maricopa County Court, Anthony and Lesley Arambula say an armed intruder “crashed through the front window” of their home on Sept. 17, 2008 and ran into one of their son’s bedrooms.

Anthony, worried about his son who was still in his bedroom, says he “held the intruder calmly at gunpoint” and called 911.

Phoenix Police officers already in the neighborhood heard the crash of the Arambulas’ window. When they approached the house, Lesley says, she told Sgt. Sean Coutts that her husband was inside holding the intruder at gunpoint. Lesley says Coutts failed to pass on that information to the two other officers.

Inside the house, the Arambulas say, Officer Brian Lilly shot Anthony six times in the back while he was still on the phone with the 911 operator – twice when he was on the ground.

It was a mistake for the homeowner to hold the intruder at gun point. If everything went perfectly the result would be the intruder getting arrested, but in order for that to happen the homeowner is going to have a negotiation with the police while both he and the police are holding guns (at least briefly) and he is going to have no direct communication with the responding officers until they are within shouting distance.

Self defense isn’t about punishing criminals, our system is not set up that way. It’s nice if burglars get arrested, tried, and punished but that has very little to do with self defense. The goal of the defender is to protect themselves and their families from harm. That could have been accomplished by ordering the intruder to get out of the house (at gun point) and letting him do so.

Proximity to the intruder is a window of opportunity for something to go bad. If the intruder decides to stop complying, reaches for a weapon, or attacks that is going to make for a much worse outcome than simply ordering him to make a run for it.

From my reading of the article there is no evidence that police officers entered the home with the intention of shooting the homeowner, but for whatever reason (poor training, lack of visibility, communications failure) that is what ended up happening.

Lilly says on the tape that he did not know where Anthony’s gun was when he shot him and that he “opened fire because he heard loud noises and saw someone who looked like he might be the ‘Hispanic’ male they were pursuing” before getting to the Arambulas’ house, according to the complaint.

… Sgt. Coutts asked Officer Lilly where Tony’s gun was at the time Officer Lilly had opened fire on Tony. Officer Lilly admitted that he did not know where Tony’s gun was: ‘I don’t know. I heard screaming and I fired.’”

From this it sounds like the officer didn’t properly identify his target before firing. Getting shot by the police is every bit as bad as getting shot by an intruder (from the homeowners perspective) and the homeowner doesn’t have very much control over how the police officer is going to respond.

From the documents presented it sounds like the police are trying to cover up their mistakes. Full Story Here.