This is indeed a terrible situation and the police should take steps to see this does not happen again. However, as an earlier poster mentioned, the police did knock first and it appears they were polite. The police heard voices in the garage which is highly suspicious. Also, the homeowner was able to identify the crook, so maybe they were buddies and who knows what kind of things they did together. Finally, the house appears to be in a ghetto area which probably has a lot of shootings and crime, so how traumatized could the family be? What the police did was wrong, but the homeowner has to take his share of responsibility as well.
52 Krankor wrote "Also, the homeowner was able to identify the crook, so maybe they were buddies and who knows what kind of things they did together"
--- However, Celos didn't know or identify Lopez -- 'He (the victim)said he can't help but wonder whether the officers came to his home because his family is the only Latino family living on the street. A group of Latino people lived in the house where the officers were supposed to go Saturday night, Celis said. But he added that those people moved out of the neighborhood a few months ago ... Celis told the officers that the man they were looking for, Johnny Lopez, 25, had never lived at his house. Celis told the officers that a man matching Lopez's description had lived next door. "
IMHO matching a description means nothing until we know what the description was. Was the description "male, average height, slender build, dark hair" or was it "male, 6 ft tall, 140 - 160 pounds, brown hair normally cut short parted on left side, appears to be of latin ancestry, inked on upper left arm with serpent". Both hypotheticals could be word pictures of the same person.
Krankor also paraphrased from the article that 'The police heard voices in the garage which is highly suspicious.'
--- I'll be sure never to talk in my garage again
Krnako "What the police did was wrong, but the homeowner has to take his share of responsibility as well"
--- Which was what, not being the perp that the cops were looking for? Being Latino outside of the barrio?