OFFICER TESTIFIES TO DOUBTS BEFORE BOTCHED RAID ON HOME

LEBANON - Police were warned by a fellow officer that they could be making
a mistake and be about to raid the wrong home, the officer testified
yesterday in a trial over responsibility for a drug raid that led to the
death of a Lebanon retiree.

However, a defense attorney for former Lebanon police Detective Steve Nokes
raised questions about the account and suggested Nokes was the victim of
the testifying officer's own incompetence.

Nokes is on trial on charges of criminal responsibility for reckless
homicide and other counts in the Oct. 4 raid that led to a confused
shootout that killed homeowner John Adams, who lived next door to the suspect.

Nokes, who supervised the operation, was made aware just before the raid on
the home of Adams, 62, and his wife, Lorine, that an error probably was
being made, Lebanon Detective Tommy Maggart testified.

"I believed we had the wrong address," Maggart testified.

Maggart said that on a final drive-by of the home where Nokes said the
suspect lived, he noticed that it wasn't clear which home the driveway and
address marker went with.

The female suspect lived in the house next door, the only other home on the
street.

Maggart also testified that when he returned to the Police Department,
where the raid team was assembled and ready, he told Nokes he had news to
share.

"The good news was she was at home," Maggart testified that he said. "The
bad news is, I think we have the wrong address."

But in cross-examination, Nokes' attorney, Charles Ward, ripped at
Maggart's testimony, wanting to know why he had not included the "good
news-bad news" warning in the report he had prepared hours after the raid.

The account appeared only in Maggart's statement to the Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation.

More important, Ward said, was that Nokes had depended on Maggart to
provide a description of the home and Maggart had failed to do that.

"With your experience and training did you not think about looking at the
address on the trailer?" Ward asked. "Lieutenant Nokes was depending on you
to do these things correctly a | and you didn't."

"I was told it was the only double-wide on the street," Maggart testified.

Prosecutors said Nokes, who participated in the surveillance, had indicated
that he had seen the suspect enter and leave the mobile home.

The two police officers involved in the shooting both testified that there
had been discussion about possible confusion among detectives minutes
before the raid.

"I overheard (Maggart) say we have a problem or we might have a problem,"
Kyle Shedron testified.

Shedron and former Lebanon police Officer Greg Day confronted John Adams in
a room lighted only by the light from a flickering television screen. Adams
was armed with a single-shot shotgun.

He and his wife were watching the 10 p.m. television news when the officers
pounded on the door and then broke it open with a ram. Lorine Adams
testified she thought someone was trying to rob and murder her and her
husband of 34 years.

"That's when I said, 'Get the gun. It's a home invasion,' " Lorine Adams
testified. "That's what I thought it was."

She fled to a back bedroom followed by Maggart and another officer who
caught and handcuffed her while Day and Shedron confronted her husband.

"When I looked up and saw they were police officers, I knew they were in
the wrong place," she testified. "I was telling them, but they weren't
listening."

Shedron testified that Adams fired a single shotgun blast that struck the
wall near his head, sending out a shower of drywall and wood fragments. The
two officers fired back with their pistols.

Adams was hit at least three times in the chest and abdomen and died a few
hours later.

Minutes after the shooting, Maggart walked out onto the Adamses' porch and
saw Nokes.

"He was flashing his light on the front porch area, and that's when I saw
(the address)," Maggart testified. "It was basically like a ton of bricks
fell on me. I didn't know what to say. He told me and several officers to
go next door and see if (the suspect) is home."