‘They Need to Pay’: White Texas Raises Gun at Cops During Botched Raid and Manages to Survive with Leg Wound
A Texas man says police shot him in the leg after he dropped his gun and surrendered outside his own home during a botched late-night raid, a wrong-address blunder that left his family handcuffed for hours and their house riddled with bullets and flood damage Thomas Simpson said he stepped out of his garage with a gun to confront the alleged intruders, but then dropped the gun when he realized they were cops. But the Grand Prairie police officers claimed they were in fear for their lives and fired several shots after he had dropped the gun. Fortunately, he was only struck once in the leg and is recovering from the gunshot wound. Thomas Simpson vows to take legal action against the Grand Prairie Police Department in Texas, which shot him during a botched raid. (Photo: youtube.com/@Wfaa8) However, other bullets struck the walls of his home, and he was concerned his family inside the home had been shot in their sleep. One of the bullets struck a water pipe, flooding the family’s home. “My nephew was on the other side of this wall,” he told WFAA-TV, pointing to a bullet hole that struck his home. “He's lucky he didn't get hit.” “My wife is in bed and those shots are going straight towards her,” he said, showing the WFAA reporter the gunshots that struck his home. “So I was terrified that she got shot while she was in bed.” Despite the blunder, Grand Prairie police still detained his entire family, including his 13- and 16-year-old children, keeping them handcuffed in the back of patrol cars for four hours while he was being treated at the hospital for the gunshot wound to his leg. And even though he never fired off a single round, Grand Prairie police are trying to persuade the local district attorney’s office to charge him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against a peace officer, a 1st degree felony that could send him to prison for anywhere from five years to life in prison. But that is likely an attempt to derail Simpson’s plan to file a lawsuit, which he told local media he plans to do. Grand Prairie police told local media they were supposed to be responding to a disturbance call at a neighbor’s house, but were mistakenly sent the wrong address. “The error occurred in part because the 911 call came from a cellphone, leading to a computer-aided dispatch system error,” KTVT-TV explained. It is still not clear if they ever responded to the correct address while they were detaining Simpson’s family. The shooting marks the umpteenth time police have shot innocent citizens in their homes, including the notorious Breonna Taylor shooting death, as well as the shooting death of a Kentucky man last year, and more recently, a Black homeowner in Florida was shot after he called police to report on intruders. Earlier this year, a Black family from North Carolina filed a lawsuit after police wrongly raided their home, terrorizing the family while destroying the house, and another Black family in Louisiana was also left traumatized after another botched raid. ‘They Need to Pay’ The incident took place on Sept. 12 after Grand Prairie received a call about a disturbance, but then they were sent to the wrong home. The Simpson family was asleep when the cops began banging on the door at 1:45 a.m., banging on the door for five minutes. Simpson said he was awakened by his dog barking and grabbed his gun and emerged from the garage with his gun drawn to confront the intruders. Police say he took an “aggressive stance,” which made them fear for their lives, but Simpson says he was the one fearing for his life. "What I saw is the garage door open. I saw two pairs of legs. So I raised my pistol, ready to fire, assuming it was criminals," Simpson told KTVT-TV. "I never popped the round off. As soon as the door opened, I saw their badge. I threw the gun to the ground, got shot in the leg. I dropped to the ground and Grand Prairie PD proceeded to fire about eight rounds after I was on the ground.” He also said the cops never identified themselves as police. "They never say police department!” Simpson told Fox 4 News. “But I recognized from the light the sign off the badge when the garage door got to a certain point. And that's why I dropped my pistol. And OK, let's figure this out. And then I get shot." Simpson said police offered no apologies or explanation for their blunder. The incident was apparently captured on police body camera video, which has not been released but will be reviewed by the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office before it decides whether to bring the case before a grand jury. But Texas juries have at least four times since 2013 cleared citizens of shooting at cops — including two incidents where the cops died — after the cops entered their properties in the middle of the night without identifying themselves. Russell Wilson, a former Dallas County prosecutor, spoke to Fox 4 News about Simpson’s chances before a jury. "So remember, Texas has very, very strong self-defense laws, and those protect residents in their home," said Wilson. “So that's going to be a challenge, I think, from a prosecutorial perspective, to find criminal conduct there.” Meanwhile, Simpson believes the only criminal conduct came from the cops themselves. "We're gonna talk to lawyers and go after everybody responsible for it," Simpson told Fox 4 News. "They need to pay. They need to learn there are consequences to their actions."
