And people continue to think of these people as “law enforcers.”  They are not.  They are pretending to be that.  The People are the law enforcers, period (Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15-16).  Now we have a dead gun owner because the agents of the state, who were looking for stolen property, arrived at the wrong address and killed a man who was merely trying to defend himself from their attacks.

Liberty Doll has the story.

The Atlanta Black Star reports:

Kentucky dispatchers repeatedly told police officers the address of a house they were supposed to raid over an alleged stolen Weed Eater, only for the cops to raid the wrong home and kill the man inside.

But the man who police say admitted to stealing the Weed Eater from a home of a local judge had already been in custody prior to the deadly raid that took place minutes before midnight last month, according to WLEX. That man told police he had stored the stolen Weed Eater at a home at 489 Vanzant Road which is a rural area outside of London city limits.

But London police chose to raid a home at 511 Vanzant Road where they shot and killed Douglas Harless, a 63-year-old white man who had nothing to do with the alleged stolen Weed Eater.

Kentucky State Police, which is conducting the investigation, said Harless “produced a firearm and pointed it at officers,” which is why they had to shoot and kill him.

But had London police raided the correct address at 489 Vanzant Rd. — instead of 511 Vanzant Road — Harless probably would still be alive today. 

The dispatcher repeated the correct address at least five times to the officers before they chose to raid the wrong address, according to WKYT, which obtained the dispatch audio recording and also spoke to the owner of 489 Vanzant Rd., who said nobody has lived in the home for months.

Although police have released little details about the shooting, neighbors told local media they were searching for a stolen Weed Eater on Dec. 23 when they banged on Harless’ front door at 11:50 p.m.

Court documents obtained by local media reveal the Weed Eater was stolen from the home of Laurel County Judge-Executive David Westerfield by a man named Hobert Buttery, 49, who confessed to the crime after he was caught on a surveillance video stealing the item. He then told cops he had stored the Weed Eater at 489 Vanzant Road, only for cops to go to the wrong home and kill an innocent man.

The incident is drawing comparisons to the Breonna Taylor shooting in 2020 where Kentucky cops raided her home looking for a man who did not live there, only for them to shoot and kill Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman with no criminal history.

The incident is also raising questions as to why London police were asking dispatchers for the address if they had an actual search warrant which would list the address on it. WKYT said it has made several public records request for the warrant but the Laurel County courthouse says it has no record of a warrant and police have not produced a copy of the warrant either.

But Kentucky State Police specifically mentioned London police had a “search warrant” in its statement published on its website.

Also, why was the London Police Department serving a warrant outside city limits in a rural area normally patrolled by the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office and why did they not conduct surveillance on the house prior to the raid to ensure they raided the correct home?

Yes, why is this?  Did they have something in for this guy or does it have something to do with qualified immunity?  In other words, they were not careful enough to determine the proper address, something cops should do before entering into what they know could be a deadly encounter.

According to Newsweek, “According to Mapping Police Violence, there were only 11 days in the U.S. in 2024 when police did not kill someone. Data from the Police Violence Report shows that fewer than 3 percent of killings by the police result in the officer being charged with a crime.”

At the least, every cop involved should be arrested and prosecuted, but more than likely, they’ll get paid vacation and be back on the job soon.  What an injustice!

Article posted with permission from Guns in the News