3 Cops Shot After Communication Fail

When I first hear about this story, I thought it was going to be another incident stemming from a "no-knock warrant" which is a commonly used tactic of the war on drugs, but one which is very dangerous for police and innocents alike. As it turns out though, this was not another one of those cases gone tragically wrong, like in the incident of the Marine war veteran who was shot dead in front of his family by police.

Steven Jones dragged his cousin to the safety of his apartment, after the cousin had been shot in a large fight that had broken out out at the complex. Jones called 911 immediately as his cousin bled badly from his wound.

Still on the phone with the dispatcher when there was suddenly pounding at the door, he told the dispatcher to tell the police to please hurry, that the assailants were now trying to break into his house. The door burst open, Jones fired his own gun, striking three Dallas police officers with bullet fragments, and then dropping his gun immediately once he realized that they were in fact police and not the attackers who had just shot his cousin.

To the credit of the officers, and quite lucky for Jones, police did not return fire. To the discredit of officers though perhaps, and according to witnesses, they did not identify themselves as police when they pounded at the door. Officers say they did identify themselves and issued verbal commands, but it seems clear that if they did, Jones did not hear them. And neither did others outside of the apartment building who warned police as they approached to not to shoot into the apartment, because there was a victim inside, not a culprit.

Jones now sits in jail accused of aggravated assault on a police officer.