Sadly it is not just a bad policing problem but likely a cultural problem in general.
Spend time on many US focused forums (non firearm) and in their general forum lots of people in certain areas talk about always answering the door armed, and not holstered BTW (if there was a threat a holstered firearm is useless unless they are an amazing quick draw...). Hidden compartment gun shelf at the door to have the hand gun at the ready. I get there are bad areas, but this is not unique to bad areas.
Really, really bad on the police for getting the address wrong. Bad on them if this was a holstered firearm (unlikely but maybe) and his hands were up. Totally expected results if he answered the door with the gun in his hand. What is common in the fog of these situations is one cop panic fires first, others hear the shots, don't know who is firing so they fire.... The video will have the answers as the above is based on assumptions of course.
Personally if I get a late night banging at the door I look out the window to see wtf before answering the door... Bunch of armed guys in my front yard, what good will one hand gun do? Cops and cars and lights what good is a hand gun going to do? But we live in a different culture. Maybe they don't have windows in the US....
Something similar happened in Windsor some time back but I'm not sure if the guy was killed. Police were at the wrong address and the guy came out with a weapon. Stay inside.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote of an incident in his book "Blink". Four New York City undercover police shot an unarmed immigrant numerous times and were exonerated.
The error was upper management failing to understand the optics of a crime fighting scenario.
The four officers in an unmarked car were cruising a troubled neighbourhood late at night when they saw the victim outside his tenement building. Not realizing he was just getting a breath of fresh air on a hot night they rushed him.
Not recognizing they were police he ran for the door and as he was reaching for his key an officer tripped and accidentally discharged his weapon. The other officers assumed they were being shot at and reacted with a hail of gunfire.
The police superiors failed to exercise foresight on ordering the clandestine operation and probably buried the facts under the rug.
What would you do if you were standing on your ghetto front porch at night, an unidentified car came to a sudden halt and four tough looking guys started running at you, yelling in a foreign language? What if you were deaf?
If the police had used a less intimidating approach the outcome could have been far different. The "Kick ass" approach designed by the superiors was the problem.
The New Mexico shoot up is American paranoia gone berserk. The police didn't invade the home with a no knock warrant. Go ahead arm yourself and yell "What do you want." Don't come out guns ablaze.
Firearm rule #1. Be sure of your target. These were uniformed police not pirates.
It isn't unheard of to be shot in the USA for knocking on the wrong door, especially if you aren't white.
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