That's from Rosas' lawyer, Lisa Greenberg. We'll admit she has a bias, but you should know that a jury wound up agreeing with most of what she's going to say here. The police stormed the home, but, like roughly half of Texans, Rosas was a legal gun owner. He responded to his window exploding by opening fire on the source of said explosion. If that response sounds crazy to you, it should be noted that Rosas had been the victim of drive-by shootings before. It was that kind of neighborhood, and he had previously testified against a local gangbanger (meaning he had been expecting retaliation). Rosas hit three police officers -- Steven Brown, Andrew Jordan, and Steven Ruebelmann. All would survive their injuries.
That was not true in the case of Henry "Hank" Magee, another Texan. Unlike Rosas, he was guilty of a crime -- he owned a couple of tiny (six-inch-tall) marijuana plants, and several more seedlings. An informant had told police that Magee ran a sizable grow operation and was armed to the teeth. A Burleson judge issued a warrant, and his trailer was raided. Magee woke up to a terrifying noise, and like Rosas, he had no way of knowing the dark shapes storming through his door were cops and not home invaders there to murder him and his pregnant girlfriend.
We talked to his attorney, DeGuerin (he's a big-time lawyer whose past clients include the Branch Davidians and Robert Durst). "He and his girlfriend say [they] didn't hear anything before there's this large explosion and a guy dressed in black ran inside." Magee went to his bedroom and grabbed his gun. "[His girlfriend] actually got burned on her neck from the muzzle flash from Hank's gun. She could very easily have been shot herself." Magee shot and killed a deputy, 31-year-old Adam Sowders.
The combined amount of drugs seized in these cases could fit in your pockets. And this biggest question is: Have we as a society lost our minds?
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