No Indictment For Officers Who Killed A Man After Wrongfully Breaking Into His Home

Officers from Mississippi broke into the home of Ismael Lopez last year when they were trying to execute a warrant for domestic violence, but they ended up entering the wrong home.

It isn't clear what took place once they attempted to enter the home, because there are conflicting remarks about what occurred. However, the police did allegedly end up shooting Lopez and his family dog. Now, a grand jury has refused to indict those officers on homicide charges.

A family advocate, Pastor Rostro, has criticized the police, saying that he is outraged over what took place. Lopez's family alleges that he wasn't carrying any gun when he went to the door, and the attorney for the family alleges that both of his guns were in their usual places. There is also a sign allegedly placed on the property that warns of Lopez's gun ownership and that there is a dog on the property.

It's alleged that the police have acted unprofessionally in dealing with this issue in a myriad of ways. First, it's reported that they refused to speak with the family for months after the incident took place. Also, that they allegedly made no genuine effort to repair the damage that they inflicted on the property. As well, that they had refused to give the name of the officer who had been the one to shoot Lopez. That name was allegedly only able to be obtained by their attorney through a leak.

Can justice honestly be pursued if there is any neglect from their agency to cooperate? For now, it looks as if there won't be any criminal charges for the officers that were involved.

The police claim that Lopez pointed his gun at them, but according to the autopsy report, Lopez was shot in the back of the head. They also claim that they repeatedly announced themselves, but there are several people (including neighbors, the family, the DA) who have said they don't believe that the officers did announce themselves. And since they were allegedly executing a warrant on the wrong home, that would mean that they didn't have a legal right to be breaking into the house when they were.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first situation to unfold where law enforcement have wrongfully entered a home, executing a warrant on the wrong property. There have been many innocent people who have been wrongfully shot and killed, by an agency who those people likely thought were in the business of supposedly protecting them.

Tens of thousands of these sorts of raids take place every year and there is plenty of room for mistakes to be made. When officers wrongfully enter someone's home and shoot their family dog or the family members inside the home, if those officers were swiftly dealt with and subjected to some form of reasonable and just punishment, then perhaps that might prompt other officers to re-think their tactics in an effort to try and prevent these sorts of situations from occurring in the future.

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