Eager SWAT Team Brings Young Alabama Lady to Justice in Wrong Home

The good news is that accused never-do-well Nicholas McLeod is behind bars in Mobile, Alabama. That’s about the only good news you’re going to read in this story, so you might want to sit down.

Nicholas McLeod was accused of… well, actually, none of the news stories about this incident actually say what he was wanted for. No doubt it was some sort of nefarious activity or activities that render him a public nuisance and alleged miscreant of sorts who needed to be taken off the streets. Here’s how his “arrest” went down.

Seeing as how Nicholas McLeod was a wanted man, the Mobile Sheriff’s Department determined that the best – nay, the only – possible way to bring him to justice without endangering women and children was to roll up on him quiet with a SWAT team. Which they did.

They checked his last known address. It was a mobile home in Mobile, which Nicholas McLeod had lived in several months ago. It was probably still his address, right? Wanted fugitives like to put down roots and stay in familiar surroundings for a long time, don’t they?

So, there went the SWAT team. It was 6:30 a.m. on a Thursday, about 13 minutes before sunrise in Mobile, Alabama. The patrol cars slowly pulled up in front of Nicholas McLeod’s last known address with their lights and sirens off. Like a band of synchronized swimmers, the SWAT officers poured out of the vehicles in full tactical gear with their rifles leveled at the mobile home in Mobile.

The man of the house, Christopher McLeod, was taking out the trash at the exact moment that the SWAT team showed up. They pointed their rifles at him and told him to get down on the ground, which he did.

It’s important to interject at this point in the narrative that Christopher McLeod, law-abiding citizen and mobile homeowner, is considerably younger than the wanted fugitive Nicholas McLeod. We also feel it’s important to note that Christopher McLeod is not Nicholas McLeod. So there’s that.

But the SWAT team’s actions against wanted fugitive Nicholas McLeod were not complete at this point. Inside the mobile home was 19-year-old Ann Rylee, who is also not Nicholas McLeod. When she heard a commotion outside and men screaming at Christopher McLeod, she did what any American would do in that situation: She grabbed her shotgun.

Now… this next part is a little bit of a “he said, she said” situation. Unless the SWAT team members were wearing body cameras, we may never know the actual truth about this part.

The Mobile Sheriff’s Department says that the officers identified themselves multiple times before two… or possibly three… officers shot Ann Rylee from out in her front yard. Ms. Rylee’s family says the SWAT members did not identify themselves and did not tell her to drop the gun; they say the officers just started shooting.

The Sheriff’s office also says that Ms. Rylee pointed the shotgun at them, which again is a “he said, she said” situation. What we do know for certain is that two or three of them shot her. The fact that the Sheriff’s office is uncertain whether two officers or three officers shot her seems to call their credibility into question.

Meanwhile, the children who were waiting at the bus stop a couple of houses down from the officers blazing away at Ann Rylee were terrified and ran back to their own homes. Silly kids! Didn’t they know that the Mobile Sheriff’s Department was keeping the community safe for them by serving a warrant on wanted fugitive Nicholas McLeod?

Ms. Rylee is expected to survive her wounds, by the way. She’s lucky that only two or possibly three officers shot her from her front yard, huh? Although “lucky” might not be the proper word in this context.

And just like that, wanted fugitive Nicholas McLeod was in jail where he belonged!

Wait, what?

Here’s the punchline, although to Ms. Rylee and her family, it probably feels more like a “gut punch” than a “punchline.” While Ms. Rylee was enjoying swift justice from the Mobile Sherriff’s Department on an early Thursday morning, it turns out that wanted fugitive Nicholas McLeod had been arrested on Wednesday afternoon. He’d already been in the county jail for 15 hours when a SWAT team showed up at his law-abiding nephew’s house and shot the nephew’s fiancé just a few yards away from where kids were waiting for the school bus to pick them up.

How much longer do you suppose Americans are going to put up with these no-knock SWAT team raids that keep bringing innocent women, children and pets to justice in the wrong homes?