© The Associated Press/Matt YorkIn this photo taken June 9, 2011, a portrait of Marine Jose Guerena Ortiz sits on display in the window of his home in Tucson, Ariz. Guerena was shot and killed on May 5, 2011, by the Pima County Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff's Department said its SWAT team was at the home because they suspected Guerena of being involved in a drug-trafficking organization that specialized in ripping off smugglers. The SWAT team fired 71 times, riddling Guerena 22 times, while his wife and child cowered in a closet.
An ordinary morning was unfolding in the middle-class Tucson neighborhood - until an armored vehicle pulled into the family's driveway and men wearing heavy body armor and helmets climbed out, weapons ready.
They were a sheriff's department SWAT team who had come to execute a search warrant. But Vanessa Guerena insisted she had no idea, when she heard a "boom" and saw a dark-suited man pass by a window, that it was police outside her home. She shook her husband awake and told him someone was firing a gun outside.
A U.S. Marine veteran of the Iraq war, he was only trying to defend his family, she said, when he grabbed his own gun - an AR-15 assault rifle.
What happened next was captured on video after a member of the SWAT team activated a helmet-mounted camera.
The officers - four of whom carried .40-caliber handguns while another had an AR-15 - moved to the door, briefly sounding a siren, then shouting "Police!" in English and Spanish. With a thrust of a battering ram, they broke the door open. Eight seconds passed before they opened fire into the house.
And 10 seconds later, Guerena lay dying in a hallway 20-feet from the front door. The SWAT team fired 71 rounds, riddling his body 22 times, while his wife and child cowered in a closet.
"Hurry up, he's bleeding," Vanessa Guerena pleaded with a 911 operator. "I don't know why they shoot him. They open the door and shoot him. Please get me an ambulance."
Comment: For an in-depth analysis of the RFK assisination read:
The assassination of Robert Kennedy, Part 1
The assassination of Robert Kennedy, Part 2 - Thane Eugene Cesar
The assassination of Robert Kennedy, Part 3 -- The woman in the polka dot dress
The Assassination of Robert Kennedy, Part 4 -- Deeper Down the Rabbit Hole
The Assassination of Robert Kennedy, Part 5 - Sirhan Sirhan