In September, a "Narcotics Strike Force" burst into the Utah home of 45-year-old Todd Blair. Blair, "armed" with a golf club, was shot within seconds. Police found "paraphernalia" and an empty vial of meth. Here's video of the raid.

Warning: A man gets shot and killed in this video. Watch at your own discretion.

As you can see in the video, police enter the house and are confronted with Blair, holding a golf club in his hands. Within seconds—and without a warning—shots are fired and Blair drops to the ground.

Blair's family says he was a drug addict but never a dealer. Police informants said they'd seen Blair sell drugs, but no investigators witnessed any transactions. Either way, the warrant on Blair's house was served as part of an investigation focused not on Blair, but on his former roommate Melanie Chournous—who police knew had moved out. An attempt to detain Blair so he wouldn't be in the house was badly botched when police pulled over the wrong person. (Police didn't bring the warrant to the house, either, not that it mattered in the end.)

The officer who shot Blair, Sgt. Troy Burnett, explained the shooting by saying "He had some silver thing. ... I thought it was a sword or something... It was silverish and thin. I didn't think about saying words. I just thought about not getting hit, or slashed or whatever." He admits that he didn't think Blair was moving toward him.

The shooting was declared "legally justified," but Blair's family is now planning a lawsuit over the shooting. It's hard to see why they shouldn't.

[Salt Lake Tribune via HuffPo]