More to the story...

Read this report of a drug raid gone horribly wrong and tell me Cory Maye doesn't immediately jump to mind:


Montreal Gazette: Man held in cop shooting 'feared for his family', Suspect mistook officers with battering ram for thieves, lawyer says

Basile Parasiris, his wife and two children awoke in a panic as police used a battering ram to break into their Brossard home and then started firing their guns inside during Friday's pre-dawn raid, his lawyer said yesterday.

Lawyer Frank Pappas said his client was trying to defend himself and his family when he grabbed a loaded gun and shot Laval Constable Daniel Tessier - whom Parasiris mistook for a crazed thief.

"If he would've believed it was the police, do you think he would have taken them on?" Pappas said in an interview. "They have more firepower than him."

Parasiris, 41, appeared briefly in Quebec Court in Longueuil yesterday, dressed in a white

T-shirt and dark pants, as tearful family members waved and blew him kisses from the courtroom audience.

Parasiris was arraigned on four counts: first-degree murder in the death of Tessier; attempted murder in the shooting of his partner, Constable Stephane Forbes; firing a gun with the intent to wound Forbes; and endangering Forbes's life.

Parasiris did not enter a formal plea on the charges.

[...]

Parasiris's brother, Nick, said the family is sorry for the death of Tessier, a father of two adolescent girls - but maintained his brother had no idea it was police in his house.

The raid at the Rimouski Cres. home was one of eight that Laval police carried out Friday in Laval and Brossard, following a nine-month investigation of an alleged cocaine and crack trafficking gang based in Laval's Chomedey district.

The seven Laval raids resulted in six arrests and no injuries.

Forbes, 46, was one of at least 13 other officers involved and is recovering in a hospital from a bullet wound to his arm.

According to Pappas, police didn't find anything in the Parasiris home.

"There was no body, no drugs, no large quantities of firearms," he said. "They may have found one or two pills of Viagra that he didn't have a prescription for.

"This guy's no terrorist."

Police should have known that Parasiris kept a registered gun, Pappas said - although he admitted that it was illegal to keep it loaded.

[...]

While Parasiris was being arraigned, his wife, Penny Panagiota Gounis, was being questioned by police in a hospital, where she is recovering from bullet wounds.

In February, she was an organizer of a fundraising spaghetti dinner at her husband's virtual golf course in Dorval, Golf-O-Max, to raise money for more than 30 people left homeless by a five-alarm blaze at a building on nearby Lepage Ave.

Their 15-year-old son sat in the courtroom yesterday, refusing to look at his father in the prisoner's box. According to Pappas, the son called 911 after the police barged into the family home and bullets started flying.

"Do you think that if they knew they were police officers, they'd call 911?" Pappas said.

The couple's 6-year-old daughter and her brother are being cared for by relatives.

The defence lawyer said he is convinced his client didn't know he was shooting a police officer; otherwise he never would have agreed to take on the case.

"If it had been some gratuitous shooting, where some gang member or someone walked up to a cop and just shot him, I would never defend him," Pappas said, adding he gets along well with all police forces.

"I believe this guy feared for his life and his family, and that's why he did what he did."

Emphasis is mine. When this story broke last week, I cringed at having to endure yet another round of politically charged nonsense surrounding drugs and guns. Today's developments put the case in a whole new light. Radley Balko (who has researched American SWAT raids extensively) has often noted that after a police shooting, usually the first thing the cops do is point out the amount of drugs that were seized in the raid. I haven't read anything yet pertaining to seizures. One Post story notes that of the six people arrested in the raids one had already been released without charges. The Globe notes that neither Parasiris nor his wife (who was presumably shot by officers returning fire?) have criminal records. At this point, all we have are the comments of his lawyer - take that as you will, and the rather exceptional details coming out of the raid (a fairly traditional family arrangement, with no criminal record and a legally registered firearm doesn't sound like a typical crackhouse to me), but rest assured I'll be paying close attention to this case as details emerge. The Surete Du Quebec (the Quebec provincial police force) has taken over the investigation.
# 3:55 PM