Wichita Police SWAT Team Shoots Innocent Man During Police Home Invasion
BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 10 months ago
Blue and red lights flashed outside of the McCormick Street house just after 6 p.m. on Thursday. Curious of what was going on – Andrew Finch, 28, opened the door.
“I heard my son scream, I got up and then I heard a shot,” his mother, Lisa Finch, said Friday morning.
Finch and other relatives invited reporters into their home Friday morning – more than 12 hours after Wichita police said an officer fatally shot a 28-year-old man, who was identified by family as Andrew “Andy” Finch.
“We want Andy’s side of the story to be told,” his mother said.
On Thursday, Deputy Wichita Police Chief Troy Livingston said a substation received a call that there was a hostage situation in a house in the 1000 block of West McCormick — and that someone had been shot in the head.
“That was the information we were working off of,” he said, explaining that officers went to the house ready for a hostage situation and they “got into position.”
“A male came to the front door,” Livingston said Thursday night. “As he came to the front door, one of our officers discharged his weapon.”
Livingston didn’t say if the man had a weapon when he came to the door, or what caused the officer to shoot the man.
Finch said her son, a father of two young children, wasn’t armed.
As the Finch family talked to reporters, they carefully navigated their way around their foyer, and pointed out a reminder of what happened.
“There’s where he was shot,” Andrew Finch’s aunt, Lorrie Hernandez-Caballero, said, as she pointed to spots of blood on the home’s porch, and on the carpet just inside the door. “They (police) had to take the screen door as evidence.”
After she heard the shot, Finch said she walked out of her bedroom and into the kitchen. A door leading from the kitchen to the side yard was open, she said.
“The police said, ‘Come out with your hands up,’” she said. “(The officer) took me, my roommate and my granddaughter, who witnessed the shooting and had to step over her dying uncle’s body.”
The family was handcuffed, taken outside and placed into separate police cruisers, she said. They were taken downtown and interviewed by Wichita police officers.
Asked if the family has talked to investigators from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Finch said they were told KBI investigators would contact them.
But they have questions now.
“What gives the cops the right to open fire?” Finch asked. “Why didn’t they give him the same warning they gave us? That cop murdered my son over a false report.”
Finch and Hernandez-Caballero said they want to see the officer – identified only as a seven-year veteran of the department – and the person who made the false report held accountable.
“The person who made the phone call took my nephew, her son, two kids’ father,” Hernandez-Caballero said. “How does it feel to be a murderer? I can’t believe people do this on purpose.”
Online gamers have said in multiple Twitter posts that the shooting was the result of a “swatting” call involving two gamers.
There are a number of misdirects in this report. Let’s address two of the most prominent and important. First of all, the blame will be placed on the illegal practice of Swatting, or calling the police and reporting an active shooting or hostage situation. The perpetrator will likely be found and dealt with, and the blame will be placed squarely on him.
The second misdirect for the readers is the question whether the innocent man was armed. We’ve dealt with this in detail before. First of all, the Castle doctrine is based on Biblical precept and it’s moral standing is rock solid. Home invasions, whether by criminals bent on evil, or police criminalds bent on soldier-boy impersonations, are all immoral in the superlative.
Furthermore, we’ve seen that even if the police announce their presence, there is no compelling reason to believe that it is the police. Criminals have become savvy to the ways of the police SWAT teams and make a pretense of the same kind of entry procedure. Men announcing that they are the police may be the police, or they may not be and may intend on rape or murder.
It doesn’t matter if he was armed, any more than it matters whether he was a gamer or if he was Swatted by another gamer. While Swatting is illegal, the perpetrator didn’t do the shooting. Being armed while answering the door isn’t illegal or immoral. Gaming isn’t illegal or immoral.
While the media will present all of these misdirects as will the Sheriff when he finally presents his case to the public (the gamer did something illegal, my deputy thought he was armed, blah, blah, blah), the reality of the situation is that the shooter is a murderer, and the team that helped him is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.
The police in America have become the most dangerous hoodlums, thugs and murderers. As I’ve said before, I feel more comfortable around gangsters who might threaten me than I do around goober cops who have no discipline or moral compunction about shooting innocent people.
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On December 30, 2017 at 12:47 am, Backwoods Engineer said:
Well, the Founding Fathers warned us that standing armies were dangerous to liberty. And now, every big city has its own standing army– the cops, and especially the SWAT goons.
On December 30, 2017 at 9:28 am, Talktome said:
I just don’t get why cops think they can shoot first with impunity. What kind of monsters are employed by out local pd’s that refuse to observe a situation before pulling the trigger? It can’t just be the “go home safe at the end of my shift”mentality, can it? If that’s the primary imperative, then they need to disband and go home. Officer safety can’t be the primary motivator for departments who are funded for public safety – u less of course they are really there for something else entirely. In that case, their needs to be a revolt until they are shut down. It sets up a us v them situation, and since our costumed crusaders have no accountability for their actions…. well the outcome is pre ordained. The guy who swatted them – that immoral creature needs serious jail time on second degree murder – he knew what the possible outcome would be. That is why he called in the false report to the cops and not animal control for a false rabid dog tale. We the people are held to account for every slight, real or imagines by the just us system, but our supposed hero’s have no such shackles on their behavior – what the fuck is wrong with this picture?
On December 30, 2017 at 9:52 am, Aesop said:
The police have decided that shooting first is the new normal.
Fair enough.
Now they have won that toss, and elected to receive.
Someone (or ones) should start culling Wichita cops until they present the severed head of the guilty PD shooter to that victim’s family, along with a formal public apology.
Until they do that, they’re unfit to serve.
But like Twain’s man who picks up a cat by the tail, they will learn something which they can learn in no other way.
On December 30, 2017 at 10:08 am, jeff said:
UNIONS!!!!!
On December 30, 2017 at 10:12 am, Ned said:
Aesop is right, of course. Bottom line is, rank and file police will defend this guy instead of ostracizing him from law enforcement. He won’t be prosecuted, and in the unlikely event that he is, there’s little chance he will be convicted.
So where are the “good cops?”
On December 30, 2017 at 10:21 am, bobo said:
Of the 2 gamers who were toddler-fighting, one threatened to swat, the other gave a fake address, more or less daring the other.
The dead guy was totally uninvolved…until Officer Safety showed up.
On December 30, 2017 at 10:53 am, Mark Matis said:
I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority of Wichita police officers are good cops, and that regardless of what their leadership and the “Legal” system does, they will get to the bottom of this and ensure that justice is done, because after all their only concern is for the safety and welfare of citizens of this country.
I also have no doubt that the fine spouses of those officers know full well what they are, and that they also will do what is right in this case. Just as the fine Habersham spouses did for Bou Bou. And the fine Lake County spouses did for Andrew Lee Scott. There is surely no way that “Law Enforcement” spouses should be considered accessories after the fact and subject to the same sanctions as murderers. After all, they are “innocents”.
On December 30, 2017 at 11:31 am, Bruce A Wineman D.O. said:
This is deplorable (not as spoken by the Hillary). There have been books published on the Militarization of our Police Departments. The problem has grown from the “War on Drugs” started back during the Nixon Administration when they started this war and have evolved a number of very dangerous precidents. One is the “no-knock” warrant, not an issue here it appears. The last administration has provided large amounts of Military hardware to our “Protect and Serve” forces (they are looking more as though they do neither). Armored vehicles, grenade launchers and grenades, to name a few. The LEOs “blouse” their uniforms and wear more Military than “Peace Keeping” clothes. And nearly every small town (or at least County) has a SWAT Team.
Now we need to address some of the other issues that have been in the last 6 months or so. We have NO way of knowing if these are the only ones, either. There was a shooting in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN over the summer of an innocent woman in her nightgown by the passenger (officer) in a squad car and nothing to date has happened except that the “Chief of Police”, who was not in town when this happened resigned… Follow that with the (on body camera “murder” of an unarmed man in a hotel in Mesa, AZ, more recently. The shooter (LEO) was acquitted, if I understand it correctly. There was a woman in another KS city shot while getting off a sofa because some one called in saying she had a firearm.
I see that any of us are able to be prosecuted by the FBI if we lie to them and they can arrange for that “lie” by lying to us. I need to have some reasonable, intelligent person explain to me why I should be we work in a “Justice” system with a series of Laws that apply to ALL citizens. It would seem that our “protectors” have become our “Keepers”, “Managers”, “Tormentors”, etc.
On December 30, 2017 at 11:46 am, Randolph Scott said:
Another innocent unarmed citizen killed by an over zealous militarized thug type of cop. It truly pisses me off more than anything else that is going on in the world.
There are two ways to put a stop to this. We can use the vote to replace Mayors, City Council people and local DA’s, Judges, Police Chiefs etc with people that will prosecute to the fullest extent these criminal murderous cops with charges of murder, or someday in the future we can use rule Rule 308. In these times there are NO Good Cops, none.
On December 30, 2017 at 12:20 pm, George said:
Yes, the police corruption is terrible, but it has always been with us and always will be as long as there are cops. But now, it is worse and more “in your face” than previously. Why is that? As Talktome says;
“I just don’t get why cops think they can shoot first with impunity.”
That is easy to explain; in reality, they (cops) exist only to protect “those who matter” – the 1%, which is of course those with money and political power. That is the first reason. The second reason why they can get away with this behavior is that we are on the cusp of entering a totalitarian regime. The surprise election of Trump saved us from that regime for a few years, but it is only a brief respite. It is coming.
On December 30, 2017 at 12:55 pm, George said:
The police will get away with this like most all of their killings of innocents over the past 20 years or so. The cop will spit out ” I was in fear for my life” like a trained canary. The standard should be, would a normal person believe he was in fear of his life? In this case no, as no weapon was present. But cops will get the lower standard “in fear of his life”. Mere belief.
SWAT teams should be done away with. They have proven to be far more deadly to innocents than they are worth.
On December 30, 2017 at 1:21 pm, Gerry W said:
By the time the Police say “put your hands up” they have already taken up the slack on the trigger and are waiting for you to flinch. Like a batter who has made up his mind to swing no matter where the pitch these Police have made up their mind to shoot and are looking for a target. The whole SWAT concept is absurd, it promotes indiscriminate killings. What in Wichita’s history justifies SWAT teams, Indian attacks?
On December 30, 2017 at 1:26 pm, Longbow said:
The cop will claim he experienced an adverse emotional state. That, and that alone, is justifiable reason to kill a mere “civilian”.
The “reasonable man” test doesn’t even apply anymore.
On December 30, 2017 at 1:47 pm, revjen45 said:
“I just don’t get why cops think they can shoot first with impunity.”
>For the same reason dogs lick their nuts – because they can.
“Bottom line is, rank and file police will defend this guy instead of ostracizing him from law enforcement. He won’t be prosecuted, and in the unlikely event that he is, there’s little chance he will be convicted.
So where are the “good cops?”
> They function by the same paradigms as an outlaw motorcycle gang. You support your bros regardless of how fucked up they are or how stupid something they did was. See the following for an excellent essay on the concept of Frith: https://mountainguerrilla.wordpress.com/2014/01/15/tribes-and-tribalism-welcome-to-the-horde-part-two/
“The police in America have become the most dangerous hoodlums, thugs and murderers.”
> Against ordinary (i.e. non-badged) assailants I have some chance of engaging and surviving. Against the Neue Einsatzgruppen I stand no chance at all, and if by chance I do survive they will make sure I don’t beat the system by fabricating a beef with evidence falsified as necessary.
On December 30, 2017 at 3:12 pm, Thc0655 said:
I’m a big east coast city police Sgt. I have trouble understanding how there can be so many idiot cops and incredibly poor decision making incidents. Sometimes I think it comes from inexperienced cops who work in low crime jurisdictions and get all jacked up on adrenaline fantasizing that they’re going to be in an “exciting” gunfight. They arrive and deploy half out of their minds. Then at other times I think it’s because of poor front line street supervision, such as in that travesty in Mesa, AZ. We get these “swatting” calls on a regular basis. You have to consider the possibility the call could be legitimate, but we knock on the door and DON’T shoot whoever opens it. And when I’m home off duty I answer the door armed. Imagine the frustration and embarrassment of those of us who see shootings like these as Homicide or at least manslaughter, who have to work within a system like this. As Frank Serpico said, “We have to be get to the place where the bad cops are afraid of the good cops, instead of the good cops being afraid of the bad cops.” There’s a lot of inertia and a lot of powerful reasons why things are the way they are. If there was an easy, simple solution we would have stumbled upon it by now.
On December 30, 2017 at 3:47 pm, Lt. Greyman, NVA said:
Here is the thing.
In a homogenous White society this would never occur. Given that 96% of crime is non-White and non-Whites are willing to get into gunfights with the police literally at will, police adopt a “shoot first and make up answers later” style of policing. Every interaction with a black becomes a “resisting” incidence as blacks try to (given a White officer) “give it to the man” or (given a non-White officer) “keep it real”. As every arrest becomes physical, the default position is to go physical.
Even worse, as the police themselves get even more non-White, you get cases like Justine Diamond, shot in the face by a Somali cop seated in the passenger seat as she spoke to an officer in the drivers seat upon calling the police to report a disturbance behind her house in Minneapolis, or a sobbing and fearful White man, on his knees and hands in the air taking a three round burst in the chest from point blank range from a non-White officer whose dust cover on his M-16 was engraved “Your F*cked” in Las Vegas, or this case cited here where simply a man going to his door to check out a disturbance is gunned down by officers.
These are not the actions of anything but military units, not a civilian police force.
As long as the USA is grimly determined to be a multi-culti paradise, fatal “misunderstands” between officers and the ones they are supposed to protect will continue.
On December 30, 2017 at 3:55 pm, moe mensale said:
The victim was shot because he was guilty of performing a “furtive movement.” The one size fits all reason for cops to shoot you.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/12/30/kansas-swatting-suspect-arrested-in-los-angeles.html
“When officers arrived at the scene, Finch opened the door for the officers. As police told him to put his hands up, Finch moved a hand toward the area of his waistband – a common place where guns are concealed. An officer, fearing the man was reaching for a gun, fired a single shot. Finch died a few minutes later at a hospital and was found to be unarmed, Livingston said.”
He apparently went to adjust his pants. A common motion to all of us but which gives cops an opening to kill you. Because thugs hide their guns there. Just like what got Daniel Shaver killed while on his knees in the hallway of an Arizona hotel.
On December 30, 2017 at 6:36 pm, TheotherGeorge said:
” or a sobbing and fearful White man, on his knees and hands in the air taking a three round burst in the chest from point blank range from a non-White officer whose dust cover on his M-16 was engraved “Your F*cked” in Las Vegas…”
I am pretty sure that you are talking about this guy:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2017/12/13/reason-scared-cops-are-scary/
Take a good look at that cop. He is WHITE, not Black or Brown.
Also, that shooting took place in Mesa, AZ not LA.
White cops will shoot a White man even sooner than they will a non-White
because they know damn well there aren’t going to be any mass White
demonstrations or neighborhood burning by Whites.
On December 30, 2017 at 8:46 pm, NTS said:
Short of re-forming committees of vigilance to track down and terminate the cops, the same way as bandit cops were taken out in the old west, nothing will change.
Deal with it, folks.
On December 30, 2017 at 9:24 pm, Papa said:
Amen, Aesop.
Amen.
On December 31, 2017 at 12:35 am, DAN III said:
Like NTS allluded to, until the citizens start hunting the Law ENFORCEMENT Officers and terminating them with prejudice, the common citizen will be nothing more than a target to the scum of government.
There are no good cops. None, Nada. Zip.
There.
Are.
No.
Good.
Cops.
On December 31, 2017 at 4:25 pm, moe mensale said:
“Even worse, as the police themselves get even more non-White, you get cases like Justine Diamond, shot in the face by…”
Lt. Greyman, NVA, not to be a dick but if you’re going to state something please try to get it correct so we don’t perpetuate bad facts. Justine Damond (not Diamond) was shot in the abdomen, not the face. It’s not hard to find a source:
http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-police-officer-who-shot-killed-justine-damond-identified-as-mohamed-noor/434975623/
That and what TheotherGeorge pointed out are two really important discrepancies in your post.
On December 31, 2017 at 9:42 pm, SGT. Ray said:
The story is a news hoax. AKA fake news, and the cop haters are eating it up and adding it to their reasons to get sporty. Guys like me have to wear a jacket over my uniform to work to avoid all this misplaced anger. It’s a war on cops waged by the media and they are playing all sides.
If you want to make a difference then why not put the uniform on yourself and show some restraint, humility and be an example to your fellow humans. I oversee 240 convicted felons that will be hitting the streets in 4 years or less, and I also supervise 9 officers whose duty is to correct their behavior. What are you doing to better your community?
On December 31, 2017 at 9:54 pm, June said:
THC0655 – how many of the bad cops in your department have you ensured no longer wear a badge and carry a gun? I’d bet zero.
Every “good” cop says the right things but ultimately toes the blue line.
I suggest you read Matt Bracken’s essay “Dear Mr. Security Agent” and make a definitive decision about which side you are on.
On December 31, 2017 at 10:05 pm, SGT. Ray said:
As Frank Serpico said, “We have to be get to the place where the bad cops are afraid of the good cops, instead of the good cops being afraid of the bad cops.”
It’s happening, and it’s not pretty but it will be done. I count at least 1 that I’ve seen shown the door that I had a hand in getting reported for misconduct.
Have faith that there are good people, I’m not saying perfect, but at least above reproach.
On December 31, 2017 at 10:29 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@SGT Ray,
“Hoax,” as in it never happened? Prove it. Or shut up.
On January 1, 2018 at 1:54 am, DAN III said:
Dear SGT Ray,
Hmmmmm….methinks you are a “corrections” officer. Not a badged street thug. Within the confines of the jail you are simply a watchdog to insure your felon’s compliance with the inmate handbook. Neither you nor your subordinates “correct” one’s behavior inside or outside the barbed wire. That is/was a job for the inmate’s mommy and daddy. Not you.
As for wearing a jacket to “hide” your uniform when traveling to and fro to work, perhaps you should dress like any other common citizen when going to work. Get there 15 minutes early and USE THE LOCKER ROOM to put on your uniform.
BTW….no one is forcing you to be employed as a C.O. Change careers. But, don’t look for sympathy because of your career choice. A lumberjack is much more deserving of the citizen’s respect than a badged thug.
Truly. You are pitiful.
On January 1, 2018 at 11:09 am, Fred said:
@SGT. Ray,
“…why not put the uniform on yourself…”
Because I don’t have a retard level IQ with a personality predisposition toward violence. I’m literally NOT qualified in most jurisdictions.