Courtesy Greenville County Sheriff and YouTube
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On June 14th, a Greenville County Sheriff’s Deputy shot a “fiercely-patriotic” gun-owning homeowner in Simpsonville, South Carolina. For weeks, the department contended that the homeowner had jerked open his front door and pointed a handgun at the responding officer. But bodycam video that was just released shows a very different story.

The video shows a deputy approaching the home’s front door at midnight in response to a report of a panic alarm at the home. He shined a light inside the home through a window by the door.

The deputy saw a man  inside — the homeowner — with a handgun. Of course, all the homeowner saw was an unexpected visitor outside his front door shining a bright light inside just before the officer opened fire.

The audio didn’t begin for the first 30 seconds of the footage because of that department’s bodycam programming.

Here’s the video:

On the night of the incident, the department’s public information officer Lt. Ryan Flood said this of the incident in a video interview to Fox Carolina:

…”The deputy was soon greeted by the homeowner who immediately jerked open the door, presented a handgun and pointed it directly at the deputy. At which time the deputy fired at least one shot, striking the occupant.”

Lt. Flood had a very different narrative of the events in a “community briefing” video the department published this week.

The homeowner, since identified as Dick Tench, has retained an attorney. Good for him.

The case doesn’t look good for the deputy or the department which for weeks continued the false narrative that the homeowner opened his front door and pointed a gun at the responding deputy.

From the Greenville News:

Bodycam footage contradicts Sheriff’s Office’s initial account of how deputy shot homeowner

Body camera video footage of a deputy shooting and injuring a Simpsonville homeowner in June contradicts the agency’s original account of the events leading up to the incident.

The video, captured by the Greenville County deputy involved in the June 14 shooting and released Monday morning, shows the deputy shot the man through the window of his house. Initially, the Sheriff’s Office said the man was shot after he opened the door and pointed his gun at the deputy. In the video, the man never opened his door.

“The Sheriff’s Office’s statement for weeks after the shooting was that my client opened his front door and aimed at a deputy and you can look at that body cam – that ends that version,” attorney Beattie Ashmore told The Greenville News Monday after the Sheriff’s Office released the clips of footage. “It’s difficult to explain how something like this could have happened.”

Ashmore is representing the homeowner, Dick Tench, who he described as a “fiercely-patriotic” citizen and concealed weapons permit holder from Simpsonville.

From studying the psycho-sensory effects of extreme stress – such as near-death experiences – I know that people’s recollection can be incorrect for a host of reasons. Time distortions (time slows for most), auditory exclusion (momentary loss of hearing), cognitive dissonance (remembering things out of order), tunnel vision, selective memory loss and other things happen. Stress impacts people differently and can result in radically different descriptions and perceptions of the same event.

Maybe this deputy’s recollection of the events was faulty. But watching that bodycam video, it’s pretty clear that the door did not come open until well after shots were fired into the home by the deputy.

Why the sheriff’s office continued with the faulty narrative for so long remains unknown.  However, it will likely greatly increase any settlement Mr. Tench receives from the department.

As for the deputy, two parallel investigations continue, one with the South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division and another with the sheriff’s office.

I know a lot of gun owners and pretty much without exception, if you show up un-announced late at night, the person answering the door (not necessarily opening the door, but merely answering it) will have tooled up before doing so.

As such, we all risk being shot if seen through windows while holding a gun. So the moral of the story: Don’t allow visitors a clear line of sight into your home from the exterior.

One of the two or three times I’ve come close to shooting someone involved a dead-of-night surprise visit by a very large mentally-deranged man. And I was very glad I brought my gun with me to answer the door that fateful night. You can read about that incident and the aftermath here.

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176 COMMENTS

    • Video files take up a lot of memory, 8 hours of constant recording is a lot for a tiny body worn storage device. Gotta trim the fat wherever you can.

      • Horseapples, the amount of memory available today discounts your excuse…a 128gb micro sd card is more than sufficient to cover 8hrs of full video/audio recording, in HD no less…

        • Honestly… this is just more incentive to buy a RING-type device for your door, and attach a secondary security cam to it. Maybe not possible if you live in an apartment and don’t have the right to mess with the building… but if you can, you probably should explore that option. Between this, and a story I covered this weekend (I’m a photojournalist) about a stabbing and carjacking that was caught on a couple of different homeowners’ security cams and RINGs, I probably going to be installing one in the next few months.

      • 720P video would be 300MB /hr for good quality, even 1080P video would be 1Gb/hr. 16, 32, even 64GB memory chips are NOT that expensive. Audio for the entire day would be a few hundred megs, and not more than 1GB.

        Storage excuses are a joke.

      • Wrong. These body cameras have a persistent recording option in which the video is always running. This is called “buffering” mode. When you hear audio on a body cam that’s actually the moment the officer hit the record button on their body cam. The 30 seconds of sound free video before the audio starts is actually the pre-buffered video that was recorded 30 seconds before the officer hit his record button.

        You are right to some level that this is to save storage space. Yet it’s not because 30 seconds of audio-free video from each clip saves space. It’s because in this buffering mode the video is being continuously recorded. Audio is never recorded likely due to both privacy concerns and mostly storage space. This continuous video captures every 30 seconds and will continue to capture 30 second increments of video and remove the oldest 30 second clips from storage as necessary. When the officer hits record, audio is now recorded. When the officer stops recording that clip, the most recent 30 second of pre-buffered sound-free video is added to the beginning, before the officer hit record. The clip is then saved. The remaining space on storage not used by saved recordings is again used to save and overwrite the continuously captured 30 second clips in a first in and first out basis.

      • ““It’s difficult to explain how something like this could have happened.”

        No it it is not.

        The LEO lied. His department lied.

        Now they’ll make up excuses and try to wheedle their way out of liability.

        More equal animals.

      • Cops are great at two things: showing up and shooting everyone involved and making it look like they had no choice.

    • The body cam was never fully activated. IT was just loop recording. I think it is more of a privacy issue. Do you think anyone would work somewhere they recorded everything you said?

      • Yeah, I do. A lot of people seen to get off on publishing everything they say and do on social media. People even put videos and other evidence of their own crimes on social media. It’s not like LEO are selected for being particularly wise.

      • I will go with the statist idiots refrain from any time the government wants to increase their surveillance of citizens: You shouldn’t care if you have nothing to hide.

      • Guess you never learned about President Nixon, who recorded EVERYTHING on ye olde TAPES, not digital… and when WaterGate started blowing up he was adamant about NOT destroying them because he wanted his memoirs to be totally accurate… and they were… including his impeachment for cause as PROVEN by the TAPES. All HE had to do was claim “National Security” and drop them in the burn chute… gone!

      • I worked in a US Gov job for 20-plus years where EVERY word in the work site was recorded. Every hardline phone call: recorded. So if you have issues with being recorded, then don’t do shady shit.

    • My guess is that it was probably the 30 seconds of video stored in the camera’s buffer from before the officer hit the button to record, which would mean he approached the house and shot the homeowner before he hit the record button. He probably didn’t realize that it saved data from before it hit the button.

    • If their system started recording when the gun fired, the camera will go back 30 seconds. Some cameras are set up that way, others when you initiate the recording.

    • A cop commits attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and makes a false police report and you guys are arguing about how MUCH audio you can get on a SD card.

      JEEEZUS!!!!! THE COP SHOT THROUGH THE DOOR SIDE WINDOW.

      Law enforcement personnel are being taught to shoot at anyone they think has a gun and then make up a B/S story to justify it.

      • And what exactly is your expertise in what officers are and are not taught? Have you attended a Police Academy? Have you done anything to serve others, other than with your mouth. Speaking of servicing others with your mouth, oh, never mind.
        Ur just a keyboard warrior who I’d be willing to bet has never done anything but talk shit about everything you know nothing about. Easy to run ur mouth, not so easy to step to the plate and dedicate your life for the good of others, even if it takes ur life.
        Yes, there are bad cops and yes, even good cops make mistakes. No intelligent person will deny these facts. But Officers are not TAUGHT to behave badly or break the law. This Deputy made some terrible decisions here, without question. His decisions were made under extreme stress, something you likely know nothing about. His Dept however, is even more culpable here for supporting a false narrative from the moment a supervisor watched that video.
        I hope the citizen can be made more whole with the large settlement coming his way. And I hope u pull ur head out of ur ass and think before speaking next time.

        • Funny you are not, Bs you might be. How many police shootings have to happen in YOUR backyard for YOU to see the pattern. Further evidence is that the Cowardly cop then JUMPED off the entryway porch into the bushes, NOT knowing he had even hit the individual… spends time shouting at the victim to throw out his gun even while WE can hear the woman WAILING in the house. The Officers PANIC reaction was to KILL and RUN and he did not become rational until long AFTER. DID HE EVER identify himself BEFORE lighting up the house?? WHY were there no FLASHING LIGHTS reflected off the house? THAT would have TOLD the homeowner WHO was knocking… ChickSpit idiot should be Psychologically reclassified as unfit for Street Duty OR the use of Lethal weapons. Nothing more dangerous than a Tazer or teargas/pepper spray. There are way too many (more than 1 is 2 many) of these incidents and cops get a “free pass”. NO MORE!

        • The cop in the article, is exactly the kind of inferior man, who the founders recognized the natural right of the Citizens to use deadly force upon.
          The officer should be imprisoned for attempted murder or executed for treason against the Constitution, for thinking it is acceptable to shoot a Citizens simply because the Citizen is armed, which is their right.

  1. “Maybe this deputy’s recollection of the events was faulty.”

    Or maybe the deputy was abducted by aliens from another planet and had false memories implanted in his brain. Or maybe he’s just a lying snake.

    • I’ll take number 2 for 5.7 million, Alex.

      The LEO lied. His department lied. Now they are trying to cover their asses and wheedle their way out of liability.

      More equal animals.

    • This is yet another reason you do not want those damn side windows next to your door! I always looked at them as access panels for thieves, now it is clear they give another way for an idiot cop sent to the wrong address to shoot you. Home owner made a tactical mistake too, he should have waited in ambush at the top of the steps with a rifle ready to drill anyone who came through the door. I hope the homeowner sues the alarm company, the cop, and the department, and wins big in court.

      • ^^THIS^^

        ^^ DOUBLE THIS ^^

        Every single time I’ve ever seen a front entryway paneled with glass (whether next to the door or as part of the door itself), I’ve always thought “gee, a few strips of tape across the glass, a pillow pressed up against it, and a hand sledge will do the trick. Nobody will ever hear it”.

        I tried to explain this vulnerability to some relatives after they installed a high-end oak-and-colored glass front door, and you should have seen the “oh crap” look on the husband’s face. Something like $5000 down the drain. You’d think the contractor/salesman would explain all the safer options.

        • This is the reason why I keep my blinds drawn and have cameras installed around the premises where I can observe my surroundings without needlessly exposing myself to possible harm. Paranoid, no; cautious in these times, yes. By the way, if you’ve already installed a door with a glass insert in it (which sometimes needs to happen in order to keep mama happy) there are items which can be applied to the glass in order to make it shatter proof.

      • “This is yet another reason you do not want those damn side windows next to your door!”

        *Worse*, he allowed anyone to look directly into his home.

        You never want to allow anyone to just look inside your home. Blinds, curtains, *something* to block a clear view inside…

      • We had a glass panel next to our door until one evening someone tried to break the door down and when that didn’t work they busted the glass panel out. They also cut themselves in the process and ran away. The panel was opaque so they couldn’t see through it but could have reached the doors locks from the inside.

        Forty five minutes and two calls to 911 later OKCPD finally showed up. They blamed the response time on “shift change”. Of course by the time they showed up there was nothing to do but document it and leave.

        We boarded up the window with heavy wood and did away with it altogether during the remodel. So, yeah, never have a window next to a door and never believe the police will be there to protect you when something bad happens (not that I did and I’m a former LEO).

  2. Local news for me just up the road in Simpsonville.

    As inflammatory as it may sound, and certainly not my intent, I will say the deputy should consider himself lucky that this did not happen a different way. Different way being other family members did not engage after one of their is down. Simpsonville/Greenville is kinda urban. Not soo much other areas in the UpState.

    • Yep, what MJ said. I live in Simpsonville and the folks from our town and nearby Fountain Inn, Gray Court and Mauldin can be scary. You can see people at the Simpsonville Wal-Mart after dark that will make you hurry up with your business and get home as quick as you can. There are plenty of SC good-old-boys in our neck of the woods. Return fire is a real possibility.

  3. So it would seem to be policy for Greenville County Sheriff’s Department to shoot first and perhaps ask questions latter.

    • Green Mtn. Boy,

      A LOT of history and experience shows us that police frequently make awful mistakes and then try to avoid responsibility for their actions.

      Requesting urgent response from police sometimes ends badly for the homeowner. My plan: take care of any urgent matters myself, wait for the situation to calm down, and then (and ONLY then) ask for a casual response from police for record-keeping purposes.

    • Wouldn’t be the first time for Greenville’s Sherriffs either. Beating up mentally disabled guys. Killing guys on mopeds because they’re speeding while texting and making illegal lane changes. There was also a weird killing of a deputy who was hunting a guy he put in prison previously over $5 and a crackhead’s complaint. Never personally had any issues with them but I wouldn’t want to.

  4. What kind of idiot makes up a story, knowing full well body cam video will contradict? Makes you wonder about ANY testimony he’s given.

    • He knows it’s a lie.
      You know it’s a lie.
      He knows you know it’s a lie.
      It doesn’t matter.
      If you don’t believe the obvious lie, you’re a “cop hater”.

      • The local yokels take their instructions from the feds. The leading bunch being the FBI who again in recent years have demonstrated themselves to be an utterly corrupt lying agency. The Russians did it my ass.

      • “Who are you gonna believe? A high-definiton video, or your lyin’ memory?”

        FIFY… 😉

      • I recall a case in NJ where something like TEN of them “malfunctioned” simultaneously.

        Helpful law enforcement tip: Try that trick on crackheads, not lady lawyers with no sense of humor.

        That was quite the payout, seven figures, I think…

  5. Prevention of “plain view” through my windows by *anyone* is exactly why I have blinds/curtains closed in all windows every single night. If for any reason I have one open (such as during summer heat waves, when a fan is on to cool off the house), I place pillows or a chair to visually block anyone from seeing into the house.

    Every night as I prepare to go to sleep, I have four things on my nightstand:
    1) cordless phone handset – to call 911
    2) car keys – to remotely set off the alarms to both cars in the driveway as a way to scare intruders and wake up my neighbors so they can act as possible witnesses
    3) flashlight
    4) handgun with mounted weapon light and hi-cap stick mag – so that if I’m on the phone with 911, I can continue to hold the phone because the other hand will have the gun, light, and plenty of rounds.

    That being said, if I have a panic alarm that automatically notifies the cops, I should know better than to walk around the house with my gun in front of open windows, since the very cops I’m hoping will show up will…you know…SHOW UP at some point.

  6. Police always lie. The “thin blue line” will do anything to protect itself. Since American police officers are trained in israeli tactics, “we are all Palestinians, now”.

    • No, to a lot of cops, this is Shanghai circa 1939, they’re the Imperial Japanese Army, and we’re all Chinese.

      • While I agree with you that many cops seem to think we live under martial law and they alone are judge, jury and executioner, the 1937-1945 Japanese Imperial Army occupation of Shanghai was relatively uneventful. If you’re referring to the infamous “Rape of Nanjing (Nanking)”, however, I’m afraid that’s another case of history being written by the victor.

        http://www2.biglobe.ne.jp/%257Eremnant/nankingm.htm

        The evidence, should you take the time to examine it, is compelling: most, if not virtually all, of the wartime atrocities attributed to the JIA were committed by Chinese deserters and looters. Also see the following re the supposed mass kidnapping of Chinese women as sex slaves.

        https://japan-forward.com/americans-comfort-women-myth-makers-from-asia-think-were-too-naive/

        Frankly it should come as no surprise to gun owners — a demographic who are routinely the target of dishonest journalism — that the majority of Japanese government officials who deny the above allegations are not just being stubbornly prideful but, in fact, are aware that Japan was the victim of an international postwar propaganda campaign. But, it is understandably easy to simply accept a historical myth you’ve been taught and to never question it again if you have no personal reason to examine the evidence (in this case, if you are not Japanese yourself.)

        • The evidence of Japanese war crimes is overwhelming, whether of the Rape of Nanking, the Rape of Manila or Unit 731.

        • “… Japan was the victim of an international postwar propaganda campaign.”

          H’mmm. It looks like Pg2 has another ‘identity’ he’s using to push his revisionist bat-shit crapola.

          Ever seen the photographs of the beheading competitions, taken *decades* before Photoshop existed?

        • “The evidence, should you take the time to examine it, is compelling: most, if not virtually all, of the wartime atrocities attributed to the JIA were committed by Chinese deserters and looters.”

          Yes, you are right, then the Chinese deserters and looters traveled to other locations in China and committed atrocities there as well. Then in 1941 those bad Chinese invaded the Philippines and committed atrocities there as well.

          “Frankly it should come as no surprise to gun owners — a demographic who are routinely the target of dishonest journalism — that the majority of Japanese government officials who deny the above allegations are not just being stubbornly prideful but, in fact, are aware that Japan was the victim of an international postwar propaganda campaign.”

          Yes, the Bataan Death March survivor who spoke at our school was part of the “international postwar propaganda campaign”. Shame on him!

          For you reading amusement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes#Crimes

        • Just wow. Mercury do you believe in the holocaust? You lost all credibility. We’re you educated in Japan around 1939?
          Time to read a history book. (And not Howard Zinn)

        • Total bullshit. Japanese war crimes were downplayed by the US postwar to keep anti-communist existing personnel in place. All well documented. Just like cannibalism by Japanese soldiers. Yes. Japanese soldiers even were eating POWs in some cases.

        • You’re either lying deliberately or due to ignorance. Either way, you’re lying – knock it off.

    • FOAD – “Israeli tactics” my ass It’s just standard jackboot fascist “SWAT” wannabe stuff. Nothing to do with Israel you idiot “antifa” troll.

    • “Since American police officers are trained in israeli tactics, “we are all Palestinians, now”

      Nicely said Yasir Air-o-Fat.

  7. One of the principles of lawful self-defense is “avoidance”. Does the self-defender have a viable and safe alternative to the use of deadly force?

    It seems that, in this case, the deputy had an alternative of moving out-of-the-line-of-fire. He could have done that in the 1 second it took for him to aim and fire. If he moved such that the wall of the house would be between himself and the armed home occupant he would have reduced his risk of being shot considerably.

    I acknowledge that even some handgun rounds can penetrate the walls of a stick house. Nevertheless, the velocity of the rounds would be substantially reduced and the trajectory altered significantly. The home occupant wouldn’t know where to shoot. Therefore, moving out of the line-of-fire would seem to be a viable and relatively safe alternative.

    The deputy ought to be cognizant of the enormous risk that the occupant was the lawful homeowner and lawfully armed under circumstances where it was prudent for him to be armed.

    He had no information that would allow him to presume an immediate threat to innocent occupants. This was not called-in as a hostage situation. Nor was it a no-knock drug bust. It was – at most – a call for police service likely to be a false-alarm.

    It appears that there was likely a mix-up in the address inasmuch as the victim claims to not have an alarm system. No doubt, this is a non-negligible risk in every police response to a panic-button type of alarm (as well as hoax SWAT’ing calls). If – under the 4A – police are deemed entitled to return fire whenever they observe an armed occupant of a home, what remains of the castle doctrine?

    • He did run away. He just shot first. Then he didn’t want to discuss it! “I just shot you in your own home for no reason, but we’ll talk about that later.”

  8. Cops hate it when you believe your lying eyes and not their narrative.

    It’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish cops and cop unions from Black Lies Matter.

    Both look you in the eye and tell you a lie which they know you know is a lie.

    And if you fail to believe that obvious lie, you’re either a “racist” or a “cop hater”.

    Police unions and Black Lies Matter are just funhouse mirror images of each other. They differ only in the constituencies they wish to make immune from the laws which apply to the rest of us.

    • A retired LAPD Detective with a 30+ year career under his belt told me an unfortunate reality is that his training involved the premise that the truth of the crime takes priority over any truth/lies told by officers. In other words, “the ends justify the means”, and lies are simply tools in their toolbox as they pursue the truth of what happened.

      I once caught a deputy on a bald-faced lie and called him out on it. I found out real quick that cops don’t like being caught in a lie and get angry about it.

      On the other hand, I have several good LEO friends who are some of the most honest and trustworthy people I’ve ever met, and they have to deal with the bad reputation the liars cause.

      • I suspect that most viewers cheer them when TV cops lie to get the ‘bad guy’ depending on how the scene was written. I am not saying this to impugn cops but rather everyone. I think of that scene in Idiocracy where Dax Sheppard cheers the cops destroying his car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwR1-aRTyyM Winning!

        • The majority of cop “training” is consists of network cop dramas? I’d believe that.

        • Did you not understand that I was criticizing the general public’s comfort with lying, not suggesting that cops are just like they are on TV shows?

        • If it is illegal for a citizen to buy or sell a gram, then it should be illegal for a cop to do the same. Even in the line of duty.

        • Yeah, he only meant not undermining one’s cover, not lying about the circumstance of an entry and or a shooting. Got it.

        • Chris Mallory – (In my best Jessie Jackson)The question is moot. Cops don’t have to pay for illegal drugs they get them the old fashioned way – (switch to John Houseman) they steeeeal them;-)

  9. Camera has to be on, There’s a warning sign right there, going to be some kind of cover-up, everyone’s all of a sudden official, there’s a warning sign. Evidence has been destroyed or erased. Those cameras are there for one reason and one reason only, for this kind of thing to happen and evidence, family will sue, but for sure put your gun down when the cops are at the door

      • Where were the blue lights from the cruiser that they like to use all the time? That’d been a really good way for the home owner to know who was out there.

        That was a string of bad decisions and the cop is lucky a secondary home owner didn’t light him up defending the man on the ground. They didn’t know he was police obviously.

        • Many years ago, I came home at night and opened the front door, surprising a burglar who was inside. He ran out and down the street to where his buddy was waiting in a getaway car. The cops eventually found them a few hours later and arrested them, but when they showed up to my house, they came down the street (driving quickly) with all lights off to keep their arrival discreet. If I were inside and still walking around with my gun in my hand, I would never have heard or seen them walk up to any windows.

        • There are a couple of reasons cops don’t come to calls like this with lights flashing brightly and the siren blaring. First of all, you’d like to catch the burglar before he knows you’re there so that he doesn’t keep on doing burglaries. If he hears or sees you coming blocks away, he’ll most likely be long gone by the time you get there. Also, suppose he doesn’t have the opportunity to flee and decides to lie in wait for you in a dark place with a gun, knife, or a crowbar or other burglary tool? He’ll have the advantage then, won’t he?

          One of the over 30 officers from my department who have been killed in the line of duty went on a call for a prowler that the homeowner called in about. As he was checking the rear basement door to see if it was secure, the homeowner (following the Biden rule) fired a shotgun blast through the door, killing the officer. There followed a half-hour standoff with the homeowner with dozens of officers surrounding the house. Could anyone think they weren’t the police? The guy ended up getting 3 years for manslaughter but we lost a damned fine officer.

  10. I love the “we are not going to talk about this right now” bits.

    I’m the police and I’m obviously here to help.

    • This right here. Let them carry malpractice insurance. The idea of insulating government actors from their bad behavior in any way is insanely stupid and has to stop.

  11. Wouldn’t this have been avoided if the cops had rolled up with lights on and siren off? Or is procedure to sneak up on an alarm call? Somebody help me out.

    • Mr police officer probably thinks he’s an uber pro tactical operator that’s there to catch the bad guy “obviously” in the house or beat him on the draw and win the gunfight he was obviously ready for. That dude saw the homeowners’ silhouette, drew and fired, FAST. That dude was primed. … on a medical alarm call…

  12. I hope they give the cop a fair trial then burn him.if i get a round thru my window and if able would return fire to try and end the threat cop or not.those idiots are not the only ones who fear for their life

    • If you operate like an Authoritarian, Paramilitarized Police-Commando and murder a US citizen exercising THEIR lawful Constitutional Rights….Then yes, they should be Flogged to Death…Captial punishment…Publicly to prevent bad behavior….

  13. So the homeowner got shot after an alarm company they aren’t even a customer of sent the cops to their house. Should be a decent payout from that lawsuit.

  14. I sure hope the folks at the residence that tripped the silent alarm are OK. Seems the victim may have a complaint against the alarm company too.

  15. yeah that 30secs of no audio is bullshit. I’ve been running dashcams for years and they have audio immediately on powering up and recording. and in the event of a high g-force incident – aka an “accident” – the ones I have will record a special separate video file that backtracks a set number of seconds from the impact. I know that works because I had a car totaled out from under me last year. and as others noted with a 128gb mem card you can get a lot of hours of video in.

      • I’ve messed with a bunch over the years . . . currently have a VAVA up front and a mini0805 out back. both are compact and discrete, and in the case of the mini0805 survived when the back of the wagon got hit by a moron at ~40mph

        • Thx. I want to finally get something set up for our vehicles. I had a run-in with a CBP agent with an attitude while visiting AZ and being stopped at a brand new checkpoint 30 full miles inland from the border (per Google Earth). I’m about as white as you can get, and my car had CA plates. I politely declined to answer his questions of “is everyone in the vehicle is an American citizen” and “where are you coming from and going to”. Once I replied that I’m not legally required to answer those questions while traveling, and then asked him for which crime did he detain me and place me under custodial arrest…he got pissed and started saying things I wish I had recorded.

          When he appeared to be satisfied somehow that I wasn’t committing a crime, he simply waved me off. Based upon past advice from my LEO friends back home, you should never simply leave without express permission, in case the cop is setting you up to arrest you for the charge of disobeying an officer. So I simply asked “may I leave?”, and he started insulting my intelligence and other nonsense. I wish I had recorded his behavior to show to his supervisor.

  16. Way to go ossifer. I’d get shot too if a retardacop did that BS. Of course I’d have my AR ready so it “might” not go down so idiotically😫

    • AR would have rightfully lit that cop’s ass right up. I don’t care who you are, don’t sneak around someone’s house at night while shining a flashlight into the windows. Most cops will shoot the family dog to silence it.

  17. I like how they show the homeowner’s weapon at the end of the PIO video, like that justifies the shoot. If he’d been armed with a deadly assault weapon, the intimation would have been full justification for the deputy to shoot him on sight, because surely anyone with AR-15 has evil intentions and deserves to be shot.

  18. I’m glad Mr Tench survived being shot twice. Now let’s hope he sues the shite out of the parties involved.” We’re not going to talk about this now ” what a weasel !!

    • If he sues it will be the tax payer that takes the hit. Even Sgt. Langley got a pension and Ofc. Brailsford got a disability comp deal for executing Mr. Shaver while the taxpayers got to pay for them while also paying $1M to Shaver’s widow.

  19. This can’t be true because there’s no such thing as a mistake or incompetence when it comes to cops. As everyone is painfully aware, every unjustified shooting is only due to racism. Cops wake up everyday hoping to find a way to hunt down and kill a black guy. Since the victim here is white, I’m calling BS.

  20. Or you could teach cops to stop shooting innocent people, to stop shooting when they see a gun or something that looks like one.

    One way to quickly decrease the amount of innocent people being shot is to arrest and charge the cop when he/she commits a criminal act like this instead of giving him/her immunity because they work for the government. If they know they won’t get in trouble they will worry about “officer safety,” as they know they will get paid vacation time and will be back like nothing happened.

  21. Well thank God the agents recovered that man’s gun at the scene. I think we’ll all sleep a little easier now.

    • The commies (even their mommies) are laughing about this shooting right about now. They laugh at the old white man getting it like the young black man does. They laugh at the man who is in love with his government as they try to shoot him dead in his own home when he is exercising his 2nd Amendment to protect his family. They laugh that the man was more likely to get shot having his gun than he would have been without owning one. They laugh about how they are right that more guns causes cops to have a tougher job because of the complicated circumstances of unknown people being armed. They are simply laughing at an old white Republican, gun owning, CCW holder, NRA Fudd man being shot by the “pigs.” They will laugh some more if the man still loves the cops after getting so close to death and the cops lying about it knowing there is evidence.

  22. I had a late night unexpected hello from the town locals at 2am about 20 years ago. I sure as heck had my 357 in hand. Behind my back as I opened the door after the cop identified himself. I told him I had a gun in my right hand behind my back. May I put it down I asked. Then he draws his gun points it at me. And grabs my shoulder to turn me around and take my gun. Well needless to say alot of not so nice words came next. I should have shot the cop and had been done with it at that point. Not all cops are the brightest bulbs under even light stress. The cop had the wrong house by the way too.

  23. Honestly… this is just more incentive to buy a RING-type device for your door, and attach a secondary security cam to it. Maybe not possible if you live in an apartment and don’t have the right to mess with the building… but if you can, you probably should explore that option. Between this, and a story I covered this weekend (I’m a photojournalist) about a stabbing and carjacking that was caught on a couple of different homeowners’ security cams and RINGs, I probably going to be installing one in the next few months.

  24. I will repost this comment (I made a week ago) about what happens in red states if you answer the door with a gun in plain view. Although this particular situation involves a character closer to criminal thug than a licensed carrier the results are no different.

    It’s not a good idea to come to the door with a gun when you live in a deeply red state.

    You might get shot or your family might get shot because officer safety.

    Doesn’t announce he is a cop. Opens the door in attempt to make entry without a warrant. Blinds the people inside with his light. Then draws down and shoots two people, killing a teen sitting on the couch, because he thought he saw a gun.

    Texas’s finest. The DA didn’t want to charge so they sent it to the people. The people love/worship their cops, thus didn’t charge the cop for killing the teen after breaking the law.

    • If you don’t care about the human rights of young black people, regardless if they have committed a crime or are suspected to have, there will be a days when it happens to the Fudd who loves the cops. Just look what happened to the murder of a Texas couple and the (increasingly obvious) criminal cover up by the department and government. It happens to everyone, not just some young black gangster from Chiraq.

      • It’s tragic that the bystander was accidentally shot and killed. Instead of teaching young black men to be fearful of police maybe they should have taught the victim to get a decent job before getting his high school girlfriend pregnant, not drop out of high school, and not hang out with wannabe gangsta drug dealers. You know, instill some very basic fundamental principles that are likely to keep him alive beyond his teenage years.

        • Hanging out with problematic people isn’t the best thing to do. I used to hangout with such people because that was the only type of people to hangout with. Humans need friends. I would hangout with good kids but their brothers were bad. So I would be hanging out with my friend but his bad brothers would be home. We were two innocent kids inside a home with gangsters but in a different room playing video games or outside skateboarding.

          Either I can’t have any friends and must stay home alone my entire childhood or I can hangout with people and leave if they are going to do something bad. Most Asian parents would not allow their kids to hangout after school and required them to stay inside by themselves or go to after school activities they condoned. Most of them were depressed and lonely if they couldn’t have some freedom. I remember seeing kids at the window watching us play. But at least that Asian kid is going to become a doctor one day and not have a social life as an adult because he is too busy.

          Some neighborhoods you have no choice but to be around bad people if you want to socialize, even if you try to stay away from bad people they come to you. Best thing to do is move to a better neighborhood with less of that, but that is not realistic for everyone. My immediate family moved to a better neighborhood full of people of higher intelligence, but at that time period in America gang culture was very popular with every demographic.

          These days the internet makes it much easier to socialize with people and stay home away from the bad guys. But is it healthy to stay indoors your entire childhood playing videos games and on social media? Is it healthy to meme all day instead of getting sunlight? What about the days of riding around the neighborhood on your bike with all your friends? What about the days of playing football in the streets? The days of going to the park to hangout with members of the opposite sex? The days where someone’s older brother or cousin says to come over to eat some food because no one is at your house to cook for you.

          Teach your kids well, but don’t expect them to always be safe when they are not locked inside your home.

        • I get you, but when you’re old enough to drop out of school and be a Daddy, it’s time to start making some responsible decisions for yourself. One of the main reasons they aren’t making responsible decisions and breaking the endless cycle is because they aren’t being taught any different. Listen to a success story that broke out of the life of poverty and crime, and you’ll find that someone took an interest in their life, and pushed them to be better.

      • I can tell you for a fact it does, although to be fair, my part of California is pretty red compared to the rest of the state. Drug raid at 3 am.. Cops have warrant for a single wide where heroin is being sold. SWAT team shows up and finds a single wide and a double wide. The double was occupied by the ranch manager and his family. Ranch manager, who knows there is something fishy going on next door, from all the comings and goings at all hours of the night, hears a commotion and approaches his front door with a shotgun in hand. SWAT officer seems armed man (in a home they have no right to enter) shoots ranch manager through a window. Fortunately, the arm wound was not fatal, but SWAT prevented EMS from treating him for half an hour while he lay on the floor in hand cuffs, rousted the family and held them at gun point, and then tossed the house.

        Yeah, it cost them. Every single thing SWAT did was a violation of the civil rights law.

        And this isn’t the only case I know of either.

      • You did notice this is a reposted comment?

        I made the comment as a response to a man saying he lives in a deeply red state, as it that makes him safer than in a blue state, where he can have a mean dog and a gun when he answers the door. I have seen shootings like this happen in mostly red states where the policy is much less strict and the consequences not as bad for the police. In blue states, the population demands that cops stop shooting people even criminals and wants them to first use non lethal or to just “shoot them in the leg.”

        Cops around the country want to “go home at night” to their families. So they don’t truly care about the people, they care about themselves and a paycheck first. I have heard cops say they don’t care about your children as much as they care about themselves, which means you are even lower down the pole. Such cops are quick to shoot people that are “reaching” or appear to have a weapon and they are quick to kill dogs even tiny ones.

        Policies can be very different in the blue states than the red states. Blue states’ policies tend to be about being passive over aggressive.

        • Okay. Where can one find compelling evidence that “Blue states’ policies tend to be about being passive over aggressive.”? Might be true, but I haven’t seen evidence either way myself.

        • Yeah I’m sure those blue nanny state liberal cops will just passively allow you to keep your guns in the event of confiscation.

      • I should use the word “areas” over “states” because even in blue states there are red areas that are more dangerous due to their policies. It’s not like the entire state has one policy. Each department has their own rules. So you have to look into each area and each department’s policies.

    • If you love blue states so much and blue state police then sell all your guns and move to a blue state. The heroic amazing passive blue state cops will protect you free of charge.

    • I have always hated SA cops.
      Cops run up to the house and start shooting through the door and hits them. They also shoot the dog, a normal cop thing. The cops then arm up with ARs and order them out of the house. Who in their right mind would walk out into a killing field? This should have been an easy win for the victim and if nothing else, This was the best gun advertisement in the world. Buy now before they kill you.

  25. My perspective is that I am glad I don’t have to respond to panic alarms at midnight.

    It sucks that the homeowner was shot and the deputy was put in that position in the first place. Has anyone mentioned why the panic alarm was activated? It certainly set the tone for the encounter.

    It will be interesting to see how the dust settles on this one. I can’t condemn anyone, categorically.

    • When you watch the video, the homeowner says he doesn’t have an alarm. So, a mistake by the alarm company giving police the wrong address? I guess the victim can sue them when he’s finished suing the police.

  26. They’re saying the shooter never said anything about the door, and the PIO didn’t know WTF he was talking about when he spewed BS to the newsies.

    The homeowner may have pointed a gun at the deputy when the deputy lit him up with a Surefire through the door’s sidelight.

    Instead of backing away while identifying himself, the deputy shot the homeowner, backed away to safety, and identified himself 20 seconds after shooting the homeowner.

    Possession of a firearm does not make the homeowner a legitimate target.

    If you shoot somebody for holding a gun while you’re clearing insurgents’ houses in Afghanistan, you’re going straight to Leavenworth, but if you do it while investigating alarm calls in USA you get bonus paid vacation months.

    • Possession of a firearm does not make the homeowner a legitimate target.

      Republicans have made it so that it is and trainers have reinforced that notion. Tactical/police trainers have told cops that they must end the threat by shooting to kill and people with weapons are threats to their life. This all leads to one type of behavior: shoot to kill when in fear of a possible threat. This is allowed to be normalized when cops get qualified immunity and are considered to always be in the right even when they are clearly wrong. Then the average cop around the country will excuse the situation with some mental gymnastics.

      The police in America want to be like the military but they don’t want to follow the same rules the military has and they don’t want to follow the rules we have to. They just want the military gear, the military structure, etc. Some of the worst offenders are in red areas where they use the drug war as an excuse.

      • Absolutely true story. At the training academy I attend, a Joe-blow citizen was matched up at the firing line with a younger SWAT officer to hit three steel targets 15 yards away. The citizen took the time to aim, and expended exactly three rounds to hit the three targets.

        The SWAT guy literally shot through three full mags from his handgun and was into the fourth by the time he finished. About 48 rounds.

        Calm citizen = 1 round per target
        SWAT cop = 16 rounds per target

        When asked what happened, the SWAT guy sheepishly said he was trained by his own dept instructor to keep firing until the threat is down.

        • Calm citizen:

          1) has not work for 10 plus years seeing the worst of society
          2) has not seen his kids birthday 2 years in in a grow cause the same Man beat his wife for the 5th time and has to process the SOB in the jail
          3) Seen more O/Ds, crashes and more dead bodies than you should
          4) excluding combat Vets has not had people shoot back at him

          SWAT:

          1) All the above

        • Hey Larry,

          The calm citizen’s bullets all found their targets. The SWAT guy had 45 of his miss, so if this were an actual situation against three bad guys, where would those 45 bullets go, especially if there are innocents anywhere downrange?

          Class, let’s all say it together: “Rule #4”

      • Military rules of engagement are generally speaking briefed as obligatory 90 second glance overs. The average junior enlisted is only marginally aware of their parameters or the basic linguistic meaning of the roe, and receives next to no real training in how to apply them under stress. The military killed thousands of civilians “by accident” in Iraq and Afghan in the 2000’s The mechanisms for enforcing ucmj and roe in a combat zone are nearly as non existent as the desire to. Cops have it much harder and are held to account far more frequently, if the truly acted like the military does over seas then most average Americans would hate them.

        • There were a lot of situations were you couldn’t shoot until you seen a gun in the guy’s hands, it could literally be right next to him, but until he picks it up… There are times were you can’t shoot the enemy that was literally just shooting at you because they are escaping by walking next to civilians. There were times you couldn’t use air regardless of the bad situation you’re in because they didn’t want collateral that will upset the village. Sometimes you had to watch a guy dig a hole in the road and go get an IED before you can light him up. There were guys that you knew were enemy and radioing back intel that you couldn’t kill.

          It wasn’t all that straightforward because of politics. Of course guys did things that they shouldn’t have, but that was considered a crime. Some guys got in trouble, other guys took it to the grave.

          The situation was strict enough that the enemy knew what they could get away with and abused those limitations put on the military. They based their tactics around the rules.

          The point was there are rules that can be more restrictive than those cops have in America. Trying to compare the enforcement of those rules in a war zone in Afghanistan or Iraq to the enforcement of those rules in America during peace time…

  27. Well – come on guys. You guys know that when you call the cops you have to be really careful. The cops are like gung-ho about getting the bad guy and won’t hesitate to drop someone getting in the way or someone that can be perceived as the bad guy. So if you have called the cops, immediately collect your barking dog (or they might shoot it). Do NOT be armed when the police arrive. You need to be ready to portray yourself as a helpless homeowner that called the cops rather than a armed homeowner that could be perceived as an armed intruder.

    Which is why I don’t even call the cops until everything is diffused.

    Step 1). Blast intruder and incapacitate.
    Step 2). Call cops and prepare for their arrival. Inform 911 that there is no reason to be alarmed and the cop doesn’t need to come in guns blazing.

      • The alarm company called the cops saying they have a triggered alarm and the owner isn’t answering. The home owner says he doesn’t have an alarm. The police said they also tried calling but no one answered. So a deputy was sent by himself to go check it out.

    • No, instead you should (if circumstances at all allow you):

      Step 1) Call 911 and keep the operator on the phone so he/she can record everything
      Step 2) Yell loudly “stop! put it down NOW!”
      Step 3) Shoot and stop the threat, preferably permanently, which the 911 operator now understands as you acting in reasonable fear for your life.

      • No, instead you should (if circumstances at all allow you):

        Step 1) Call 911 and keep the operator on the phone so he/she can record everything
        Step 2) Yell loudly “stop! put it down NOW!”
        Step 3) Shoot and stop the threat, preferably permanently, which the 911 operator now understands as you acting in reasonable fear for your life.

        Pass. I’d say something stupid to the intruder and it would all be recorded by 911, and played back to me in court.

        • LOL, I feel you. In the adrenalized moment, I might start ordering a pizza out of habit. Perhaps, then, just dial 911 and say “Help! Someone’s breaking into my house!” before hanging up. The very fact that you called for help legally places you in a better position after the dust settles.

    • The homeowner/shot resident did not call the cops and had no idea the cops had been called. The light could have easily been shined by a criminal wanting to get into the house.

    • I rather have liberty and justice for all than pockets full off tax payers’ property. A settlement is not justice, it’s a lot of traffic tickets for everyone else afterward. Deputies/cops like this will remain a threat the community and in positions of power over the community. One day they will lead the noobs to be just like them.

    • That is a another case of cover-up and the ones that were allowed to retire should be arrested and jailed now awaiting trial.

      • Looks like 3-4 cops committed unjustified homicide then retired for the cash. But that’s not all, there is also a bunch of other cops that helped with the framing of the couple after they were shot dead. They went into the house and messed with the crime scene to make it look like the couple attacked the police in a firefight that hurt numerous cops. They tried to put a handgun and drugs in the house afterward to make it look like the couple were harden drug dealers, another Bonnie and Clyde gangster couple. Even the police chief and union president tried to fabricate a story to defend the corruption that is their department. They also confiscated neighbors’ home security video and claimed not to have any bodycams although they requested the lawyers not to release any footage to the public of the raid they recorded. All for the drug war and their personal benefit.

        Seems 4 cops need to go to prison for murder. Another group of them sent to prison for conspiracy and tampering. The police chief should join his men in prison if Texas had any sense of righteousness. What they likely will do is what every corrupt government does in these cases, they will scapegoat one guy (probably the minority) for all of it and go back to work for many more years.

        There are other Texas departments and offices that are just as bad. Texas is a police state that doesn’t respect their residents and doesn’t mind murdering them.

  28. Lessons learned:

    1. Cover the side lights by your door, no need for anyone to see you before you can see them. Imagine if the deputy had been an actual criminal rather than a baffoon.

    2. This is why the argument that only cops and military should have access to guns is a false premise. This deputy diplayed cowardice, pure and simple. An elderly man answering the door at 3am should absolutely arm himself. The deputy could have easily retreated out of sight as soon as he saw that gun and verbally challenged the homeowner and set the stage for a successful encounter.

    • But I am a young proud cop. I should not have to run away from any criminal and I should be able to eliminate any threat to my safety.

      What has this SJW and BLM culture done to our once great nation?

      All you guys care about is the criminal. If the man would have just followed orders or answered his phone he wouldn’t have been shot. You think we want to shoot people? You think we wake up everyday thinking about killing someone? We feel worse about this situation than the home owner who was shot. If you just respect law enforcement you will be safe. What is so hard to understand? It was just an accident, don’t try to blame anyone for an accident. The guy survived, it’s not a big deal. We will retrain our officer to do a better job next time. Oh wait, we can’t because you guys won’t give us more money to better arm and train our officers.

      • “All you guys care about is the criminal.”

        WHO here was the “criminal”???

        “If the man would have just followed orders or answered his phone he wouldn’t have been shot.”

        WHAT number did the cops call??? If they were at the wrong address, why should I believe they had the right number?

        “You think we want to shoot people?”

        Some of you do, the cops who tried to slaughter Emma Hernandez, Margie Carranza and David Perdue for instance.

        “We feel worse about this situation than the home owner who was shot.”

        That reminds me of the old saying, “Germany will never forgive the Jews for the Holocaust.”

        “If you just respect law enforcement you will be safe.”

        In what way did Charles Kinsey NOT “respect law enforcement”???

        “The guy survived, it’s not a big deal.”

        I’ll take that attitude the next time a cop gets shot and survives.

        Your words represent EVERYTHING that people despise about cops.

        • User1 is a blue banana loving, liberal cop licking, blue state supporting, back the liberal badge kinda guy.

  29. The Deputy should know that any calls from an alleged alarm company not withstanding, it is highly probable that any people inma house are rightful residents who are reasonably alarmed by your arrival. Backing away from view while announcing yourself would be the justifiable response to an armed home owner who almost certainly doesn’t know who you are.

  30. it is not enough that mr trench sues the parties involved. this is turning into a communist country, if you shot a cop under the same circumstances what do you think would happen to you. this cop should be charged and convicted. but what do you think will happen to him?

  31. Officer gets called to a ‘panic’ alarm and sees an armed guy inside and fucks up. Maybe lies about it, maybe just doesn’t remember correctly- that happens all the time even with force on force training (i.e. no reason to lie). Initial reports are based on his statements. Ok. But how long before you break open the video? Maybe hours to maintain chain of custody. Maybe even a couple days until the investigators (not from the department) are there to see it. But weeks?

    Aside: I don’t want an alarm on my house unless I can be SURE it’s not going to go off unless I want it to (or if I’m gone). Luckily everyone now has a phone with them 25\7 so it’s not such an issue.

  32. Sounds like the county and police agency have a serious need for writing practice, as in the writing of a check, or checks. I wonder, by the way, what the limits of their insurance might be, and what happens if an award made to an injured party goes beyond that limit.

    • It should come out of physical assets.

      Every time this happens, police property should be auctioned off in satisfaction of the judgment.

      Let them sit on White Castle pickle buckets behind milk crate “desks”, and take Uber to calls.

  33. As I don’t know the man (deputy), I can’t say if he is a good or bad cop (you know what they say about opinions), however, it does appear from the video, that he panicked. Having been placed in shoot/no shoot scenarios before, this was a clear case of “get off the ‘X’ “ and re-evaluate! This ,kind of, points toward officer training. I was actually surprised that he hit with both shots. Probably luck.

  34. Charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for the cop and a lawsuit to give the innocent citizen at least some compensation for his ordeal. It’s only fair.

  35. “Why the sheriff’s office continued with the faulty narrative for so long remains unknown.”

    It is very clear why. Cops believe other cops and they will do everything to believe them to the bitter end until facts dictate otherwise. Citizens’ words could for little in the police world.

    ALL police should be REQUIRED to wear cameras. This kind of crap has gone on too long. You can’t expect the police department to tell the truth unless forced to, which is a sad commentary on where we are as tax-paying citizens.

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