Here we go again in Maryland!

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Glocktogo

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As with any of these incidents where the police conduct a raid, it will take time to suss out exactly what happened. Unfortunately the PD responsible for this event have elected to go with an exceptionally vague response when the news learned of the incident 12 hours after it happened, and not from the PD but from "other sources". :(

Lawyer: Man asleep when police fired on house, killing him

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/lawyer-man-asleep-police-fired-house-killing-69587748

Tl;Dr:
An attorney for the family of a Maryland man who was shot and killed by police says he was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, killing the 21-year-old and wounding his girlfriend

PD Response:
members of the department’s tactical unit were serving a “high-risk” search warrant related to unspecified “firearms offenses” at the home around 4:30 a.m. A tactical unit officer fatally shot Lemp while police were serving the warrant.

“The facts and circumstances of the encounter are still being investigated by (police) detectives,” the department said in the statement, which provided no other details about the shooting.

The unidentified officer involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave, a standard procedure after police shootings.


SILVER SPRING, Md. -- A Maryland man was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, killing him and wounding his girlfriend, an attorney for the 21-year-old man’s family said Friday.

The Montgomery County Police Department has released few details about the shooting that killed Duncan Socrates Lemp early Thursday. Rene Sandler, an attorney for Lemp’s relatives, said police could have “absolutely no justification” for shooting Lemp based on what she has heard about the circumstances.


“The facts as I understand them from eyewitnesses are incredibly concerning,” she told The Associated Press.

The warrant that police obtained to search the Potomac home Lemp shared with his parents and 19-year-old brother doesn’t mention any “imminent threat” to law enforcement or the public, Lemp’s relatives said in a statement released Friday by their lawyers. Nobody in the house that morning had a criminal record, the statement adds.

“Any attempt by the police to shift responsibility onto Duncan or his family, who were sleeping when the police fired shots into their home, is not supported by the facts,” the statement says.

A police department spokesman didn’t immediately respond to the statements by the family or their lawyer.

Sandler said the family believes police fired gunshots, not a flashbang or other projectile, from outside the home, including through Lemp’s bedroom window, while he and his girlfriend were sleeping. Nobody in the home heard any warnings or commands before police opened fire, she said.

“There is no warrant or other justification that would ever allow for that unless there is an imminent threat, which there was not,” Sandler said.

A police statement Thursday says members of the department’s tactical unit were serving a “high-risk” search warrant related to unspecified “firearms offenses” at the home around 4:30 a.m. A tactical unit officer fatally shot Lemp while police were serving the warrant.

“The facts and circumstances of the encounter are still being investigated by (police) detectives,” the department said in the statement, which provided no other details about the shooting.

The unidentified officer involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave, a standard procedure after police shootings.

Sandler said Lemp’s grief-stricken family is traumatized. Their statement says they intend to “hold each and every person responsible for his death.”

“We believe that the body camera footage and other forensic evidence from this event will support what Duncan’s family already knows, that he was murdered,” the statement says.

Lemp worked as a software developer and was trying to raise money for a startup company, according to friends and co-workers.

“He was a talented, smart guy. Super nice. Didn’t deserve to get shot,” said Samuel Reid, whose Canadian software company employed Lemp as an independent contractor.

Tsolmondorj Natsagdorj, 24, of Fairfax, Virginia, said he met Lemp in 2016 and bonded with him over their shared interest in cryptocurrency. They also talked about politics. He described Lemp as a libertarian who frequented the 4chan and Reddit message boards, sites popular with internet trolls.

“Duncan was a young guy with a bright future as an entrepreneur,” Natsagdorj said. “We was working on things to change the world.”

On social media accounts that friends said belonged to him, Lemp’s username was “YungQuant.” On an internet forum called “My Militia,” someone who identified himself as Duncan Lemp, of Potomac, and posted under the username “yungquant” said he was “an active III%'r and looking for local members & recruits.” That’s an apparent reference to the Three Percenters, a wing of the militia movement. The group’s logo, the Roman numeral “III,” has become popular with anti-government extremists, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

On his Instagram account, Lemp recently posted a photograph that depicts two people holding up rifles and included the term “boogaloo,” slang used by militia members and other extremists to describe a future civil war in the U.S.

Friends said they never heard Lemp espouse any anti-government rhetoric. Sandler said Lemp was not a part of any anti-government or militia-type group.

“He was pro-America and supported wholeheartedly all the protections of the Constitution,” she said.
 

RETOKSQUID

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