Neighbors worried after police storm wrong house, open fire

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — People who live in a DeKalb County neighborhood are upset over the show of force by several DeKalb County officers Monday night that ended with a police officer and a homeowner shot by another DeKalb County officer.

The homeowner, Chris McKinley, was shot in the thigh. His pet boxer was shot dead after DeKalb County police officers responded to his brick and tan one story home.

During the shooting 22-year-old Officer Travis Jones suffered serious injuries after being struck in the hip.
GBI investigators believe all the gun fire came from police.

Police entered through the back door. The house matched the description a 911 operator relayed to police.  Jeremy Matthews lives across the street in a home matching that description too.

"It could have been us. We were lying on the couch watching TV too. It's scary. It's very scary," Matthews said.
Tama Colson was on her evening walk. Colson is a former first responder. She ran to McKinley's home when she heard her neighbor scream.

"I had him sit down and I took off my shirt and applied pressure to the bullet wound on his leg," Colson said. "A third officer arrived, ran in the house and I said, 'I want a lieutenant or sergeant here now,' and he said 'Oh, S***.'"

Only Channel 2 Action News was there as McKinley arrived home Tuesday from the hospital.

Channel 2's Wendy Corona spoke with one neighbor who says the McKinley's wife spent some time at their home Monday. He said the couple is doing well.
  
Channel 2's Liz Artz spoke to people who have visited with the police officer shot in the incident. They say he's alert and conscious but seriously injured, meanwhile exactly how all this happened inside the DeKalb County home remains the focus of the investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

"We've had our challenges here in this community to but we faced them and have turned over everything to proper agency to look at what occurred and what should occur next," DeKalb County's Deputy Chief Operating Officer for Public Safety Dr. Cedric Alexander.
 
Alexander said it's too early to tell if training was an issue in the incident, but new policies and procedures are constantly being implemented at the department.
 
"We are employing all the latest recommendations that you can imagine into this department as we confront these issues," Alexander said.
 
Alexander said after the investigation is complete and he has a better idea as to how this played out, and what went wrong, he'll know how to proceed with training or retraining issues at that time.

WSBTV