Jesus.

Three Atlanta police officers were shot and wounded and an elderly woman killed at a house in northwest Atlanta Tuesday night.

The woman, who relatives say was 92-years-old, opened fire on the officers from the narcotics division at a house at 933 Neal Street, according to officials. Authorities say they received a tip of drug activity taking place at the home and officers were headed to the house with a search warrant.

Relatives identified the elderly woman as Katherine Johnston.

The woman’s niece, Sarah Dozier, says that she bought her aunt a gun to protect herself and that her aunt had a permit for the gun. Relatives believe Johnston was frightened by the officers and opened fire.

“They kicked her door down talking about drugs, there’s no drugs in that house. And they realize now, they’ve got the wrong house,” Dozier said. “I’m mad as hell.” Officials say they had the correct house and that the warrant they had was legal.

I suppose we’ll learn more soon. I guess it’s possible that a 92-year-old woman was dealing dope. Probably quite a bit more likely that the informant gave a bad tip, though, isn’t it? Which is why you don’t send SWAT teams out to kick down the doors of nonviolent offenders.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 11:41 pm 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.