This is a good case because there is no racial angle to bring out prejudices on either side. Having watched the shooting video, I felt that there were a lot of

This is a good case because there is no racial angle to bring out prejudices on either side. Having watched the shooting video, I felt that there were a lot of people with more responsibility than the man pulling the trigger had over this. This includes the person barking confusing orders to the drunk man, whomever were in charge of their SWAT training, and the drunk man himself. The incident began when someone called 911 after having seen someone pointing a rifle from a hotel window. The BBC article (naively) describes this as: The police report said the victim had shown guests in his hotel room a rifle he used for work. It later emerged that the rifle was an airsoft or pellet gun, rather than a genuine firearm. In fact, SWAT is absolutely the appropriate response to anyone seen pointing a possible rifle from a hotel window. And of course there would have been no 911 call in the first place if he hadn't been pointing this out from his the window (unless the bystander was psychic). That it turns out to be "just a pellet gun" is no excuse. I expect that if my neighbors see me at a window pointing a rifle-like object around at them, that SWAT will be breaking down my door shortly afterward. I have no problem with this. The interaction is where the problems begin. To my eye, it was clear enough what the police thought they were doing: they wanted to get the drunk man away from the open hotel door before they approached, because they had no idea what was in the room behind him. This is the correct course of action. Unfortunately, the orders being barked at the man (who had unfortunately not tied his gym shorts) were confusing, and he kept reaching down to pull up his shorts as he was alternately told to crawl forward, put his hands on his head, and raise his hands. At the end, the officer barking orders (a different person from the shooter, apparently) told the drunk man several times in a row to let his shorts fall, and that if he reached around behind him, they would fire. This happened, and the shooter did fire. Obviously their SWAT process needs serious reforms. More than one person on that team need a different line of work, including the shooter. However, I didn't feel that the criminal case against him (which found him not guilty, I believe, though don't recall exactly) was justified. As far as denying PTSD/pension benefits to the shooter, or the re-hire shenanigans described in the article, I have no opinion.