Capshaw, Alabama:

When 11-year-old Aaliyah McCoy heard crunching gravel Tuesday morning that indicated vehicles were driving toward her home, she peeked out a window and saw vans and “a bunch of cop cars coming.”

She heard voices yell next door, “Open up! Police!” and then she heard “boom, boom.”

“When they started shooting, I got scared and got down on the floor,” Aaliyah said. “I was scared they would come in on me.”

[...]

According to family members, officers shot Kenneth Jamar, a man in his 50s who suffers from gout.

U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said the task force did not have an arrest warrant for Jamar, but were searching for 28-year-old Jerome Wallace, who was wanted on federal drug conspiracy charges. Jamar is Wallace’s uncle.

Huntsville Police Chief Rex Reynolds said the task force had a search warrant for 13355 Honey Way. That is not Jamar’s address, but the address of James Wallace, father of Jerome Wallace.

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s “wrong address” and “wrong man.” Shot four times.

This article says family describe the victim as…

… a semi-invalid with a pacemaker, who “couldn’t get up to make himself a ham sandwich.”

Police say the man provided “aggressive resistance,” which they then “neutralized” by shooting him twice in the chest, once in the groin, and once in the foot. Jamar was airlifted to a local hospital, had sugery yesterday, and is recovering in intensive care. He’s in critical condition.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 29th, 2006 at 11:50 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.