This happens too regularly:

In the early-morning hours, deputies knocked on 26-year-old Andrew Lee Scott’s door without identifying themselves as law enforcement officers. Scott answered the door with a gun in his hand.

“When we knocked on the door, the door opened and the occupant of that apartment was pointing a gun at deputies, and that’s when we opened fire and killed him,” Lt. John Herrell said.

Unlike the man that these cops were looking for, Scott hadn’t hurt anyone. He was only sleeping. Still, folks, when someone’s pounding on your door at 1:30 a.m., you shouldn’t be scared.

“He was pointing the gun at the deputy and if you put yourselves in the deputy’s shoes. They were there to pick up someone who was wanted for an attempted homicide.”

Officials said the deputies did not identify themselves because of safety reasons.

The cops can feel terrified, of course. That’s sensible. Imagine that poor deputy. But if you’re scared, you’re asking for it.

“It’s just a bizarre set of circumstances. The bottom line is, you point a gun at a deputy sheriff or police office, you’re going to get shot,” Herrell said.

So, to sum up: when it happens that angry people knock down your door in the middle of the night, don’t you go arm yourself. That’s legal suicide. Okay, got it.

In November of last year, a police shooting occurred in White Plains, New York.

Kenneth Chamberlain was a 68 year-old former Marine with a heart condition. After accidentally triggering his medical alert pendant in the middle of the night, the cops knocked on his door, waking him up. He responds to police by going to the door but not opening it. Frankly, he’s distrustful of the police. He tells them that he’s fine. There’s no problem, they can go away.

They refuse to go away. They keep telling him to open the door. They grow angrier and angrier with him, warning Kenneth that they’re going to break down the door. It becomes a police-driven confrontation that spirals off into hell. Democracy Now interviewed Kenneth Jr., the victim’s son:

KENNETH CHAMBERLAIN, JR.: Ultimately, after using expletives and racial slurs, they broke down the door. You can see on the video from the taser that they fired a taser at him. And I’m assuming that both prongs didn’t go in. He stood about maybe eight to 10 feet away from them with his hands down to his side. And at one point, you hear one of the officers say, “Cut it off.” And it was at that point they shot and killed my father.

Who checks in on a veteran with a heart condition and tasers him? The police report indicates they then shot him with a beanbag. After that, they shot Chamberlain dead, right in his own apartment. Why? They say he wielded a knife. That claim isn’t supported by audio and video of the incident. What’s more likely is that this was a homicide involving racist cops:

KENNETH CHAMBERLAIN, JR.: I’ve heard—I heard several things on there. One thing you hear is my father pleading with them to leave him alone. Excuse me. You hear him asking them why are they doing this to him. He says, “I’m a 68-year-old man with a heart condition. Why are you doing this to me? I know what you’re going to do: you’re going to come in here, and you’re going to kill me.” You also hear him pleading with the officers again, over and over. And at one point, that’s when the expletive is used by one of the police officers.

AMY GOODMAN: What did they say?

KENNETH CHAMBERLAIN, JR.: Where they say, “I don’t give a F.” And then they use the N-word. And then, as I said, ultimately, they bust down the door. And it hurts because, as I said, it didn’t have to go to that point. You also hear the operators from the LifeAid company call the police station and say that they want to cancel the call, Mr. Chamberlain is OK. And at one point you hear the officer there at their central office say, “We’re not canceling anything.” They say, “Call his son. Contact his son.” And they say, “We’re not contacting anyone. We don’t need any mediators.” …

KENNETH CHAMBERLAIN, JR.: And in 45 years of me being on this earth, that was the very first time that I ever heard my father where he was pleading and begging for his life, someone who I looked at as being extremely strong, to hear him beg for his life, to say that this was his sworn testimony on the audio, which the police did not know that was being recorded. He said, “My name is Kenneth Chamberlain. This is my sworn testimony. White Plains police are going to come in here and kill me.”

While Kenneth Jr. and his attorney have seen and heard the tapes, the police refuse to release them to the public. Police won’t release the names of the officers, and won’t say whether they’ve been suspended or are still on active duty. The District Attorney has done nothing so far. The whole thing reeks. Does anybody really wonder why black people still view cops with distrust?

Video and transcript here. The victim’s sister speaks out.

They report. You point and laugh.

. . but here’s my thing: you gotta make up some rules. Because you could have jetpacks flying into choppers.

There are only 10,000 cops in Los Angeles. So I suppose everybody gets to take their service jetpacks home at night. And a billion dollars? That’s the yearly LAPD budget.

I’m disappointed to say I haven’t yet laughed at this clip because these people are so stupid that it depresses me a little. Has anybody in a helicopter ever made an arrest? Have the Crips figured out how to fly?

How did this happen? Because the powers that be at Fox, the producers and writers, read the Weekly World News.