The worker said he was alone in a large wood shop around 6 p.m., finishing a project in the back of the building. Other employees usually worked from morning until around 5:30, so he was not there at some strange hour. He was in the finishing room, wearing a respirator and covered in paint, doing exactly what someone would expect a shop worker to be doing.
Then he went to hang up his spray gun and saw the barrel of a firearm pointed straight at his chest.
At first, he said he could not see who was holding it. Only the gun was visible through the crack of a partially opened door. For a second, he froze and assumed someone had broken into the building and was about to rob or shoot him. He jumped back behind the spray booth to hide.
Then the doors opened, and three police officers came in yelling for him to put his hands up and move slowly to the wall.
The original Reddit post can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/1iala10/police_entered_building_without_cause_pointed_gun/
The worker said he tried to explain that he worked there, which should have been obvious from the respirator, paint, and work setting. The officers asked for his name and whether he had identification. They already knew his last name, he said, because they had apparently run the plates on his vehicle outside.
Once things calmed down, he asked whether the building alarm had gone off. His first thought was that maybe the other employees had armed it without realizing he was still in the back. One officer allegedly said yes, that was what happened. The officer also claimed the door had been wide open, which was how they entered.
Then, according to the worker, the officers left immediately without apologizing. They told him to make sure the door was locked.
The explanation did not sit right for long. After the officers left, the worker remembered something important: the alarm system had been removed six days earlier. He called the friend who owned the building, and they checked the camera footage from the front.
According to the worker, the video showed the front door was not wide open. It was completely shut. The owner watched footage of the officers opening the door and entering. The worker said they made calls afterward, but the department continued to insist there had been an alarm and that the door had been open.
That left him with more questions than answers. If there was no alarm, who called police? If the door was shut, why did they say it was open? And why did officers enter without announcing themselves before a gun appeared through the door near his chest?
He said he was not looking to sue, but he did want accountability. The part that bothered him most was how close the encounter felt to going wrong. He later added in the comments that other people who closed the shop alone carried weapons. If another employee had been there and mistaken the officers for burglars, the outcome could have been much worse.
Commenters told him and the building owner to preserve the video immediately. Several said the footage showing the door closed and the officers entering could be important if they filed a complaint, requested records, or spoke with an attorney.
Some suggested filing a formal complaint with the department and escalating if necessary. Others recommended contacting internal affairs, the city or county, or a civil rights attorney, especially because the worker said the officers pointed a gun at him without announcing themselves.
A few commenters were more cautious. They said there might have been some kind of call the worker did not know about — a false alarm report, a citizen report, a nearby burglary concern, or something entered incorrectly. They said the owner should request the call logs, report, body camera footage, and any dispatch records before assuming exactly what happened.
The worker pushed back in the comments, saying the old alarm had never been connected to an outside monitoring service and had only made a loud noise as a deterrent. He also said the footage showed the officers opened the door themselves.
By the end, the worker was left with the same issue that made the encounter so unsettling. Police may have believed they had a reason to enter, but from his side of the door, all he saw first was a gun pointed at his chest in the place where he was supposed to be working.
Like The Avid Outdoorsman’s content? Be sure to follow us.
Here’s more from us:
