A police call to an apparent disturbance; a sudden encounter between an officer and a suspect believed to be armed; a snap decision; pops of gunfire and the terrible aftermath of blood and regret. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/01/nyregion/in-connecticut-a-police-killing-that-seemed-to-go-against-type.html?hp This time the person who was shot was a successful 75-year-old businessman and philanthropist, and the policeman a well-liked veteran who was a rare minority officer in a virtually all-white department. The victim, John Valluzzo,  founded, nurtured and helped finance an improbably ambitious military museum in Danbury. “He was all about making everything better. He was a wonderful person. Never violent. To be honest, I can’t imagine what he’d be like violent. The whole thing makes no sense.”

As first recounted by the police, the shooting occurred around 5:15 p.m. after Ridgefield officers responded to a report of a domestic disturbance at Mr. Valluzzo’s estate. The account by the Connecticut State Police says that officers responded to the scene where they confronted Mr. Valluzzo, who was armed with a handgun, in the yard outside his house.
The police said they ordered him to put down the weapon and instead he refused to comply and raised the weapon toward the officers, at which point one of them, Jorge Romero, a seven-year veteran of the Ridgefield police, began firing. An autopsy said Mr. Valluzzo died of multiple gunshot wounds.
Valluzzo got into an argument with a woman, and she called a friend in Florida.
The friend then called the Ridgefield police, saying Mr. Valluzzo was drunk and brandishing a gun. Neither Mr. Valluzzo nor the woman expected that the friend would call the police, or that the police would show up at the house, he said. There is a wrought-iron gate that blocks the driveway but it was open, allowing officers to come up the driveway to the house.
“That’s where the cops came. John was standing inside the kitchen. The woman said all she heard was: ‘Freeze! Freeze! Pop! Pop!’ Then she heard a thud — him falling — and then him moaning.” “the police officer was very upset and kept saying, ‘What did I do?’ The other officers were trying to console him.”