Brickbat: To Protect and Serve

David Hooks had reason to be a little nervous. Someone had taken items from a pickup at his Dublin, Georgia, home and stolen an SUV from him the night before. So when his wife reported seeing armed men in camouflage in their yard around 10 p.m., he grabbed a shotgun. Minutes later, the men kicked in their back door and shot Hooks dead. The armed intruders turned out to be Laurens County sheriff's deputies. They'd found Hooks' SUV earlier in the day and arrested Rodney Garrett. Garrett admitted stealing the SUV but claimed the meth they found on him was not his but had been stolen from Hooks' truck. Based solely on that, they got a warrant to search Hooks' house. They searched the home for 44 hours and found no drugs.