Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik spoke on the record concerning the SWAT raid that killed former Marine Jose Guerena (courtesy of reader Rich Buckley). There are several questions and answers that deserve our focus.

Dupnik: I don’t know. My feeling is that the reason he came not to the door, but entered the hallway with an assault rifle pointed, the only reason none of us were shot, is because he forgot the safety was on. And by the time he realized, he was shot. But my feeling is the reason he came with that gun is that he thought we were there to arrest him for murder.

Waddell: Is there any explanation as to the mixup, because Storie has come out and said, look, we thought he wasn’t going to be home, or, we didn’t know the wife and kids were going to be home.

Dupnik: I don’t have an explanation, but that’s not the facts that I have. We had reason to believe that he probably was going to be there. We also had reason to believe that the kids may not, and the mother, because they were supposed to be at school. That was their normal pattern. But we did not conduct the surveillance that day because we would have been identified. We can’t do that. First of all, when we are serving a search warrant on a property, it’s typical for when the people find out that you’re outside the house, the start destroying evidence that they can, burning documents, and things of this nature. That’s one of the reasons that we don’t do that. We had no reason at all to believe that this was anything other than any of the multitude of other search warrants that we’ve served where we never had a problem. We had no reason to believe that this guy was going to do that. But because he is part of a very violent organization, we considered it high risk.

Waddell: There have been a lot of people who have started to call for changes in SWAT protocol in general – the way that things are surveilled, the way that the operation is conducted itself. We’ve even had one of your former colleagues, the Graham County Sheriff, come out and say, look, I’ve worked with Sheriff Dupnik and I think it’s time to make some changes. One, what do you say to those critics who are calling for changes in SWAT protocol? And two, do you think that maybe it is time to review some of the policies?

Dupnik: We’re always reviewing our policies. And that’s one of the purposes of our shooting board, which is going to be meeting next week. But as far as the other criticisms, let me tell you that Pima County has a nationally-recognized SWAT team. As a matter of fact, one of our commanders goes all over the country instructing other organizations on SWAT techniques and protocol. We have one that’s known internationally, Dr. Richard Carmona, who goes all over the world talking about SWAT. In my judgment, we have a premiere SWAT organization, and at this point I don’t see any need to — This was an unfortunate situation that was provoked by the person himself.

Waddell: We have had some viewers who have come out and said, look, how do I know that the SWAT team isn’t going to bust into my house and shoot me dead in my house for what they would say is no reason. What would you say to the community to address some of those concerns of perhaps mishandling?

Dupnik: I don’t think anything was mishandled. Unfortunately, this individual points an assault rifle at cops. You do that, you are going to get killed. And the community has no reason to be concerned about it. We have a national reputation. We have been doing this for many years. And our organization as I said is nationally recognized as one of the most proficient. It’s not an issue. We average about 50 of these searches of where we have to have a search warrant from judge. And law abiding people don’t have to worry about confrontation with the cops.