Palm Springs Court Cases

Two Palm Springs police officers were both shot and killed while responding to a public disturbance. John Felix, a twenty 6 year old resident of Palm Springs was the convicted suspect of the shooting, and deaths of Jose Gilbert Vega, 63, and Lesley Zerebny. When the officers arrived to the residence of John Felix, they tried to get him to comply with there orders to exit his home. After 10 minutes had past with no progress, and Felix opened fire on both the officers. Felix had said he would kill the officers, but the officers did not expect to be fired on behind the door. When Felix shot them, it was at random. Both officers were taken to the hospital and died there.

Next the SWAT team called in and flushed John Felix out of his house with

In the article, no evidence was given that the officers did not follow protocol, as they did not enter the resident’s home without permission or a warrant.

Police are allowed to enter a home under the circumstances of someone resisting arrest. (www.qld.gov.au/law/crime-and-police/being-arrested-and-police-custody/being-searched/)

In this case, the article does not go into much about the public disturbance that John Felix committed, but usually disturbing the peace does not warrant arrest. Depending on how severe John was being a public nuisance, he could have been arrested to serve jail time. In that case, the officers would have been able to enter his home and arrest him.

(http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/disturbing-the-peace.html)

But in that scenario, they still could have been shot and killed. But if they acted quickly enough, maybe they could have tazed him to where he could not retaliate. Honestly, there is nothing that could have really been done differently in that moment. As no one can tell the