moral of the story...if a cop tells you to drop your gun...and you don't you're going to get shot...If i was the cop I would have shot him too. You don't know the whole situation at once when you enter the home yeah somebody may be shouting something at you but you're really not paying attention...you're paying attention to the guy with the gun as you should be because he is the one posing the threat and deadly force is authorized in that situation the cop did nothing but his job

The cop shot him from behind:
1) while the guy was on the phone with 911 (which recorded what happened)
2) after the cop had been informed by the wife that the man with the gun was her husband
3) without saying a word

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for the cop to of shot him from behind he had to be a ARMED MAN FLEEING FROM HIM . DOESN'T SOUND LIKE HE WOULD OF HAD TIME FOR A CONVERSATION .
I hope the guy lives but when you get to the truth if he had not come here illegally he wouldn't have been hurt and the buglar wouldn't be in jail in the usa .
but it does mean there gos another 6 million in our tax money that could of been used for schools if the cops were doing there jobs

The incident had witnesses and was recorded by 911. There is absolutely NO question that the home owner was shot in his back, while he was standing in his living room. He cop shot him multiple times, continuing to shoot once the home owner was on the ground. The cop had been informed by the homeowners wife that the man with the gun was her husband and the man at gun point was the intruder.

None of what I just wrote is disputed by the police or the homeowners.

Bingo.

Roll over and play dead, and if you are lucky they won't shoot you.

They need to fire the cop who shot this guy because he was such lousy pistoleer/rifleman, that he did not kill the guy. What kind of crappy cop training did this guy get anyways? They need to fire every body at the police academy, too. If your gonna defend yourself with a lethal weapon against a bad guy, when did the police academy start training their cops to miss the vital chest cavity, etc... thus letting the poor ba$tard recover and sue them? And what?????... no gung-ho head shot like in the movies??? Come on you gung-ho ba$tards, we want real blood and guts!!!

Sounds like a bad version of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western...

Hand in your pensions and badges boys, you just plain SUCK !!!!

Jeez...

Ahhhhhhh.... see, if the media really jumps on this hard, they can use this case to get an over five-round capacity firearms ban in place by the end of the current Congress... maybe that is what this is all about... after all, isn't this just part of a normal cops day? Doesn't this happen actually quite often in the line of police work? Why all of a sudden do we hear about this ONE CASE, and not the (most likely) dozens like it that happen in the line of regular police work across the country??? You send a bunch of gung-ho linebackers out into the public armed to the teeth and trained to drool about the weapons they wield, what do you expect?? Human error is going to happen.

If I drive my car and plow into some little old lady, I just used deadly force to annihilate a life. But I doubt I am going to make it to CNN and ABC... and I was pretty gung-ho about my car, too... it has a fast engine and can do zero to sixty in about 6 seconds...

There is most likely a liberal agenda behind the liberal media jumping all over this gun/cop story...

...MARK MY WORDS...

This is just the type of bull$hit news reporting that goes on in the propaganda war against the 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Cop makes human error in the line of duty, next thing you know they are trying to take away my pistols, rifles, shotguns and ammo. Mark my words... watch this be used for political B.S....

Μολὼν λαβέ >> "Come and take them!"

The OP's CNN link is dead, so here's the story on ABC:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/phoenix-family-lawsuit-cops-shot-homeowner-intruder/story?id=8756441

I believe you are right, they will use this for their political agenda to push gun control.

does anyone really think this cop did this intentionally? Our police are in precarious situations every day, put in deadly situations every day. No one except that officer knows what was going through his mind. They were already in the area because of a hispanic male with a gun shooting, adrenaline was already going. Could words have been misinterpreted when the wife said he's in there with the criminal at gunpoint? it's a possibility.

Also, I listened to the wife on the news with her attorney, she said one bullet was in the back and he was shot in the chest, wrist and leg. Hey, I'm going by what she said. All in all, I'm not saying this officer doesn't need to be penalized, but him knowing he shot an innocent man will haunt him the rest of his life. I know they've been trained, things happen, sadly they do. I wish some would be this angry when a criminal takes a life, instead of saying poor guy had problems. Criminals murder because they have it in their hearts, this officer didn't do it out of hatred.

I will pray for the best for all of them.

Just found the article http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2009/03/hero_homeowner_shot_mistakenly.php

A homeowner who was holding an intruder at gunpoint just before a Phoenix cop shot him multiple times is seeking at least $5.75 million from the city for himself and his family.

Tony Arambula, 35, still suffers pain and will require several more surgeries following the September 17, 2008 shooting, according to a notice of claim filed Monday with the city of Phoenix. Attorney Michael Manning, who's made a name for himself on high-profile cases involving mistakes or abuses by law officers, states in the claim that if it comes to a jury verdict, the city may end up paying $5 million to $9.5 million -- or more.

The case -- told in a readable style by Manning in the notice of claim -- is a fascinating, bizarre and tragic tale sure to send chills up the spines of Arizona's many gun enthusiasts:

A crazed man wielding a 9mm handgun broke into the Arambula's home near 32nd Street and Osborn while the family was inside. Tony crawled with his youngest son to meet his wife -- a legal secretary for a local law firm -- at the back of the home, then got his own gun and confronted the intruder in his oldest son's room. The older boy fled out of a closet while his dad held the stranger at gunpoint.

Moments later, three Phoenix cops burst into the home. They had already been in the area to look for the gunman, who had already frightened the owners of another home.

According to Manning's notice of claim, six-year veteran Officer Brian Lilly then shot Arambula in the back, blowing a hole in him the size of a Dixie cup. The officer fire several more times, hitting Arambula in the legs and arm.

Arambula had been on the phone to 911 at the time: "You just killed, you killed the homeowner," Arambula told the operator.

A transcript of the 911 call attached to the claim records the obscenity-ridden reaction by police, who quickly understood a mistake had been made.

Arambula didn't die. But his survival, says the claim, came despite further bad treatment by the cops. Manning says cops dragged the bleeding homeowner across gravel, right in front of his wife and kids, and then tossed him on the superheated hood of a squad car.

The intruder, Angel Anastacio Canales, was arrested. The 9mm was found under one of the kids' beds. When Channel 15 (KNXV) came to her door later, Lesley Arambula (pictured above) called her husband a hero.

Tony Arambula may still need to have a hand amputated, and "doctors have told him to expect a lifetime of pain and arthritis..." in his wrist and knee. Another source of pain is Arambula's hip -- surgeons busted it apart to obtain material for a bone graft in his wrist.

Manning's claim says Arambula is willing to settle the case for $3.5 million for himself, plus $750,000 each for his wife and two kids.