Family members of a man fatally shot during a no-knock raid last week say he was schizophrenic, so reclusive and paranoid that he rarely spoke to other people and couldn't have dealt drugs as police suggest.

"How are you going to sell drugs if you're scared of people?" Lynette Thibodaux, 45, said Tuesday of her nephew, Nathan Aguillard, 26. "There needs to be an internal investigation. I think they went after the wrong person."

Aguillard, a Hurricane Katrina refugee, was shot by Denver police Officers Ronald Fox and Thomas Mc Kibben on Friday morning when they broke through his apartment door at 4754 Peoria St. with a warrant to search for drugs.

Police say Aguillard confronted the SWAT officers with a gun and was shot to death. They say they found guns and drugs in the apartment. The two SWAT team officers each have 21 years of experience.

Denver police spokeswoman Sharon Hahn said an investigation of the shooting is underway and she could not comment about facts of the case. The warrant signed in support of the no-knock search was not available at the courthouse Tuesday, nor was a listing of items found in Aguillard's apartment.

Denver attorney Craig Skinner said the Aguillard family has hired him to review the Police Department's actions in the shooting.

"We're going to try and find out if the police did anything inappropriate," Skinner said Tuesday. "I do see several red flags. It does seem curious (police) haven't been more open about this shooting and the warrant."

Aguillard's sister Nina Aguillard, 33, said there are several things police said about Friday's shooting that trouble her because they conflict with what she knows about her brother.

She said that as far as she knows, her brother never has owned a gun, nor has he sold drugs. He had a minor criminal record, she said.

Nathan Aguillard had been arrested for marijuana possession as a juvenile, was charged with disorderly conduct when he threw an air conditioner out the window of their New Orleans apartment and shoplifted a pair of pants in Arkansas after Hurricane Katrina. In Denver the past two years, he's had only traffic tickets, she said. An online search of criminal records showed no arrests for drugs or violent crimes, and no arrests in Colorado.

She said her brother, who dropped out of school in the sixth grade, was a recluse. He would rant about his fear of birds, which he believed wanted to attack him. Frequently he wouldn't take his medications and became depressed, moody and paranoid.

"Sometimes he can hold a normal conversation, and sometimes he cannot," she said.

Thibodaux said whenever her nephew came over for dinner, he would eat alone because he didn't like to be around other people — even his own relatives.

Sometimes when he was on medications, Nathan Aguillard carried on a relatively normal life, his sister said. He earned money doing temporary jobs at factories and had a few relationships with women, she said.

Their mother, who is schizophrenic, helped pay his expenses; Nina Aguillard said she has paid his light bills with money she earns at Wal-Mart.

He was living alone in a subsidized apartment when he was shot to death, she said. She added: "Everything just doesn't seem right to me."

Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts)