The Connecticut Post has published a video taken during the 2008 tactical police raid on a house in Easton, Connecticut, which culminated in the shooting death of Gonzalo Guizan. Police stated that Guizan, a friend who was visiting homeowner Ronald Terebesi, Jr. at the time, attacked the lead officer, provoking the officer to shoot Guizan. A summary of events can be found in my story for the Fairfield County Weekly.
The video doesn’t show much but the details are in the audio:
This is significant. According to the state attorney’s report, windows were broken and two stun grenades detonated inside the house. The door was broken down and a third grenade tossed through. The stack then entered.
After the door was forced, Sweeney says he stepped into the den and “felt high-velocity impacts on both his left boot and the shield, and thought he was being fired upon and had, in fact, been shot,” the report reads. Sweeney tried to pin Terebesi and Guizan with the shield in his left hand. “While Terebesi pulled on the shield,” says the report, “Guizan proceeded to grab the officer’s right hand in an apparent effort to wrest his pistol away. … Sweeney, beginning to lose his grip and fearing that he was about to lose control of his weapon, fired it until he was free of the man’s grasp.”
Nothing corroborates Sweeney’s version of events. No fingerprints or DNA were found on Sweeney’s gun. To my knowledge, the shield was never tested for Terebesi’s fingerprints. No one else saw Guizan attack or wrestle with Sweeney. And in fact Sweeney didn’t fire until he freed his weapon. This is a logical fallacy: the report says the pistol jammed after six shots. Sweeney fired until his gun broke.
Did the stack enter the house too quickly, resulting in Sweeney being struck by their own grenade? Did he become confused and disoriented as a result and wildly open fire? Was the story about an aggressive Guizan fabricated afterwards? The state’s attorney didn’t think so. He absolved the police of any criminal wrongdoing and then promptly retired.
In the video, the sound of the door breaking occurs at the 1:18 mark. The bullets stop at 1:20.
Two seconds.
