A Vietnam vet kills an intruder. Then, cops show up and shoot him dead by mistake

(CNN)A case of mis­taken iden­tity left a man dead after pro­tect­ing his fam­ily from an invader.Offi­cers were dis­patched to an Aurora, Col­orado home around 1:30 Mon­day morn­ing. They heard gun­shots com­ing from inside the house, accord­ing to Aurora Police Depart­ment Chief Nick Metz.Upon enter­ing, offi­cers saw a dead body lying on the bath­room floor, and assumed he was a vic­tim of the inva­sion. Then, Metz said, they saw Richard “Gary” Black, 73, stand­ing in the liv­ing room — alive — and armed. He was per­ceived as the per­pe­tra­tor, so they opened fire. But Black was not the invader. He lived there.

‘A very, very vio­lent and com­plex situation’

Metz detailed the fol­low­ing events Thurs­day in a press con­fer­ence: When offi­cers arrived to the home, there was yelling. A num­ber of peo­ple were stand­ing out­side the home, includ­ing Black’s wife. When offi­cers passed her, she said “he has a gun.”

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