Duncan Lemp

A Maryland man who was shot and killed by a police officer was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, an attorney for the 21-year-old man’s family said on Friday. The man’s girlfriend was also wounded.

The Montgomery county police department said in a news release Duncan Socrates Lemp “confronted” police and was shot by one of the officers early on Thursday.

But Rene Sandler, an attorney for Lemp’s relatives, said an eyewitness gave a “completely contrary” account of the shooting. She 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 said.

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

“Any attempt by the police to shift responsibility on to 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 did not immediately respond to the statements by the family or their lawyer.

The department’s news release said tactical unit members were serving a “high-risk” search warrant around 4.30am when one officer fatally shot Lemp. Police detectives recovered three rifles and two handguns from the home. Lemp was prohibited from possessing firearms, police said.

“Detectives were following up on a complaint from the public that Lemp, though prohibited, was in possession of firearms,” the release said, without elaborating.

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.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/14/duncan-socrates-lemp-maryland-shot-police-officer

I think this is the second man killed enforcing new "Red Flag Laws" in Maryland.

No doubt many will say he had it coming.

Sounds like a deliberate and pre-meditated 'hit' by those police on someone they had a personal grudge against...

Then produce warrants and weapons after the fact..

A big question has to be why those police were firing into a house, without knowing how many innocents may have been in there ?

IF it turns out to be an unjustified home invasion and assassination, those police should be jailed for murder --  but that rarely happens..   Even if found guilty, the most that we're likely to see is a couple of token 'sacrificial lambs' convicted of manslaughter, and receiving moderate jail terms...

Sounds like the Dallas police, innit? Dallas police officer Amber Guyger shot and killed a Dallas black man, Botham Jean, after mistaking his apartment for hers. I swear, that story also has all the sounds of a professional hit.

Who goes to the wrong floor? Who can't tell their own apartment from another's? America's police are being recruited by organized crime, to cleanse the community of their enemies.