40: Shots start, and are apparently a combination of semi-automatic and automatic fire. No muzzle flashes are visible and it is impossible to tell exactly who is firing. In addition, their specific weapons are not visible. Two officers immediately retreat out of the frame of the camera, to the right, in front of the garage. This leaves the officer who is apparently inside the house, the officer holding the shield who is blocking the doorway and the officer leaning over his left shoulder, at the left side of the doorway, leaning in, apparently firing. It appears that the officer with the shield is armed only with a handgun (normal procedure when carrying a shield) while the others are armed with long guns of various types. I can make out the distinct reports of at least three weapons.
Almost immediately, an officer in the background, who was closer to the camera, has slung his long gun behind his back. He draws his handgun, and runs to the front door.
44: Positioning himself between the officer holding the shield and the officer on the left, he sticks his handgun between them, apparently one-handed, and begins to fire. By this time, the officer holding the shield can be clearly seen to be on his back on the ground in the doorway. His shield is now oriented so that it is between him and the camera.
48: The shooting stops. The officers seem disoriented, not knowing what to do. There are no apparent attempts to reload. Only the three who remained outside are visible. The officer who apparently entered, ahead of the shield man, is not visible.
50: One final round is fired. It’s not possible to tell who fires it or why. The camera quickly shifts downward, away from the scene of the shooting, and the video stops at 54 seconds.
OBSERVATIONS:
(1) There appears to be no organization at all. The officers are not organized into an entry stack, they are not apparently taking pre-determined positions, and they mill about, apparently not knowing what should happen next.
(2) They are apparently announcing themselves, but their words are muted. It would be entirely possible for people in the home to be unable to hear what they are saying.
(3) The activation of the siren appears to be uncoordinated with the action at the door. I cannot hear any radio traffic asking for such activation, and there are no visual signals requesting it. If the residents heard it at all, it could be easily mistaken for a car alarm.
(4) Music, apparently playing in the police vehicle, is a very disturbing sign. It indicates a lack of training and concentration that would be potentially deadly in any SWAT operation. This is an amazing bit of foolishness. It is hard enough to clearly hear radio traffic and voices in fast moving, stressful situations. Adding extraneous music is incredibly stupid and dangerous.
(5) Whoever knocks does so very quietly and makes only 4-5 knocks. It’s not possible to tell whether the home has a doorbell, but from the knock to the kick that opens the door only about seven seconds elapse, not nearly enough time for any resident to answer the knock even if they did hear it.
The evidence currently suggests that Vanessa Guerena, Jose’s wife, spotted armed men roaming about the yard. Telling Jose, he directed her to hide in a closet with their four year old child, and taking up an AR-15, crouched in a hallway to intercept what he likely thought were armed home invaders. The exact time frame of these actions is currently unknown.
That the officers take the time to knock and sound a siren indicates that they did not consider time to be of the essence. They were apparently not concerned that the residents of the home would be armed and waiting for them, or that they might be trying to dispose of evidence. Had this been the case, they would have obtained a no-knock warrant and entered without warning, maximizing shock and surprise and minimizing the danger. As it is, their actions indicate a poor state of planning and readiness, haphazardly combining elements of a low-risk warrant service-albeit with a fully armed SWAT team, which makes no sense—and a high-risk, no-knock entry, for which a SWAT team makes sense.
(6) When the door is kicked open, the officer who apparently opened the door has to hastily retreat through several other officers, indicating very poor planning. In proper dynamic entries, the breaching officer or officers are positioned so that they can immediately swing out of the way without obstructing others, allowing the stack to immediately enter. Here, no one moves toward the door in a coordinated manner.
(7) After the door swings open, it takes about five seconds for an officer to apparently enter the door on the right, the shield man to stand in the doorway, blocking it, and the officer on the left of the door to lean in and point his weapon into the home.
(
An important consideration here is that the officers were standing in bright sunlight. Upon entering, or looking into the home, unless they took appropriate steps to compensate, their vision would be compromised. Anyone who has been outside in bright sunlight and stepped into a building without lights on understands what I’m talking about. It is likely that when they saw Guerena, and the specifics of that encounter are far from clear, they saw only a dark and/or indistinct outline. It is impossible to see if the officers are wearing goggles or dark glasses, which would allow them to see clearly in a darkened dwelling upon entry, but there is no apparent sign of them adjusting such eyewear off their eyes as they stand in the doorway. It is entirely possible that those who fired had no real idea why they were firing because they could not clearly see the “threat” that was drawing their fire.
(9) The shooting begins with 4-5 evenly spaced shots, apparently on semi-automatic. Those shots are quickly joined by a wild melee of fire which lasts about eight seconds, followed by a two second silence and one final shot. According to media accounts, the SWAT team “leader” said that the officers involved exhausted their ammunition. That’s not at all hard to believe, and it is possible that more than 71 rounds were fired.
What is absolutely clear is that the firing was not professionally done. Professional operators fire in two-three rounds bursts, take the milliseconds necessary to asses whether their fire has had the desired effect, and fire again, in a carefully controlled, highly accurate manner, only if necessary. What I heard on the video was panicky fire. Two officers heard the first firing, and they simply opened up and held their triggers down, or kept pulling the trigger, until their bolts locked back, their magazines having been emptied. No doubt their trigger fingers were still jerking even then.
Considering the nature and volume of fire, it is amazing that Guerena was hit some 60 times. It is also amazing that the entire neighborhood was not ventilated. Apparently at least one round did strike a neighboring home—which indicates that the police recognized the reckless manner of their fusillade sufficiently to check out the surrounding area—which caused to police to break into that home to ensure they hadn’t killed anyone. Apparently, they were lucky and did not. It is equally amazing that they did not shoot each other.
UPDATE 052911, 1329 CT: According to a more recent local news story, the medical examiner has reported that Guerena was hit not 60 times as originally suggested by doctors, but only 22 times. This is far more in line with common results of police shootings where most rounds fired do not hit their intended targets. This is also far more in line with what would be expected of the wild and uncontrolled fire of the SWAT shooters in this particular incident, particularly those firing on full-auto. Highly skilled operators can control fully automatic fire in a submachine gun or light carbine such as the AR-15, untrained operators cannot. In any case, carefully controlled and aimed short bursts are always preferred. Police officers are directly responsible for each and every bullet they fire. In this case, nearly 70% of the rounds fired by the police missed. This might make more likely my contention that the officer's vision was compromised and that at least some of them had no real idea of their target or why they were shooting at it, other than the knowledge that one of their number was initially shooting at something. As shocking as all of this might be, the hit rate is about average for police shootings. SWAT teams should do much better. Knowing this, it is even more incredible that the officers did not shoot Mrs. Guerena, her child, themselves, or anyone else in the neighborhood.
(10) That the shield man never actually entered the home, but merely stood in the doorway, perfectly silhouetted, in the very center of a textbook fatal funnel speaks very poorly of the team’s training and experience. It’s not clear how he ended up on his back in that doorway. Did he trip and fall? Perhaps he was knocked off his feet by his teammates, eager to get in on the action. It is also possible that the fourth officer who hastily ran up to the door and thrust his handgun between two of his fellow officers may have fired it so closely to the head and face of the shield man that he was momentarily stunned--or injured--and knocked off his feet. Other officers block the view of the camera, so it is not, from the video alone, possible to know what happened.
(11) Perhaps the most egregious and telling indicator of little or no training, planning, experience and ability is the officer who runs to the doorway, thrusts his handgun between two fellow officers, likely shooting very close to their ears and eyes, to fire off some “me too” rounds. It is highly unlikely that this officer could have had any idea of his target, if he saw one at all. To be completely fair, he was probably acting as police officers do, tending toward action rather than inaction, but proper SWAT training teaches only appropriate, effective action. There is absolutely no room for “me too” shooting, on the street or during SWAT operations.
(12) It is not, of course, possible to know what the officers did prior to the video, but they had obviously been there for at least a short time before the videotaping began.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
The information available through media accounts does not present clear probable cause for a search of Guerena’s home. One media account noted:
“The reports state Jose Guerena; his brother, Alejandro; and Jose Celaya were named as suspects in briefings given to officers before the search warrants were served. Many of the officers' reports refer to the sheriff's long-term drug investigation as the reason for the search warrants.
Reports show about $100,000 in cash, marijuana and firearms were seized that morning from the four homes that were searched.
Items found in Jose Guerena's house included: a Colt .38-caliber handgun, paperwork, tax returns, insurance papers, bank statements and a bank card, reports showed.
Another report said detectives found body armor in a hallway closet and a U.S. Border Patrol hat in the garage.”
Notice that there is no information to indicate that any drugs or money were found in Guerena’s home, or that Guerena or his home, were in any way directly related to criminal activity. In fact, the police have, to date, not released the search warrant affidavit, warrant and return for Guerena’s home. However, there is no evidence to indicate that they found anything at all illegal in Guerena’s home. If they had, considering the public and Internet attention this case is generating, they surely would have made it public. Any drug case they were working has long been blown. Secrecy is no longer an issue.
None of the items listed as having been found in Guerena’s home are illegal, or indeed, unusual, particularly for a former Marine who had served two combat tours. One reason that the warrant information has not been released is likely that it was non-specific. In other words, the grounds for searching Guerena’s home may have been shaky at best.
Another media reports notes:
“According to a report, a detective interviewing Jose Guerena's younger brother, Jesus Gerardo Guerena, asked him about the slayings of Manuel and Cynthia Orozco. Jesus Guerena said he knew the couple because they were related to his brother Alejandro's wife.
According to Star archives, Manuel and Cynthia Orozco were killed during a home invasion in March 2010.”
This seems to indicate the police straining to find justification for SWAT involvement in the search, to say nothing of justifying the search itself. Guerena’s younger brother knew two people killed in a 2010 home invasion because they were related to his brother’s wife? Hopefully this is not the extent of the police’s justification for the search, or of Guerena’s being “linked to a double homicide.”
Very disturbing is the fact that the police did not allow Guerena medical help for about an hour and a quarter. In fact, they may not have entered the home after their fusillade of fire, instead withdrawing and eventually sending in a robot to poke and prod Guerena to make sure he was dead. That the SWAT team apparently did not immediately follow up their fire and completely clear the home is further, damning evidence of unbelievably poor leadership and execution. For those who have experience in such matters, the apparent behavior of the police is simply mind-boggling.
What is also unknown is how the police handled the aftermath of the shooting. Officer involved shootings are probably the most demanding situations officers face. The need for absolute perfection in the handling and collection of evidence, the interviewing of witnesses and involved officers, even the precise accounting for each round fired and its final resting place—a nightmare in this case—is of the utmost importance. The slightest deviation from proper procedure can indicate incompetence, cover-up or both.
As you read further accounts of this situation keep in mind that the actions of the police must be judged only on what they knew, or reasonably should have known, when they arrived to serve the warrant that morning. Post-shooting attempts to paint Guerena as the worlds most dangerous drug dealer and homicidal maniac (who, faced with four armed men he likely recognized as police did not take his weapon off safe) mean nothing at all, other than that the police are furiously spinning to justify what may turn out to be unjustifiable.
I don’t have all the facts. No one does. But based on the video, and what is currently known, it is very hard indeed to see how the police acted with anything less than amazing incompetence, incompetence that cost the life of a former Marine, a man who was apparently a solid citizen working hard in a copper mine to provide for his young family.
