The murder charges, initially filed against Christopher Long for the shooting death of Peyton Strickland, were then dismissed after the grand jury foreman said he checked the wrong box on the indictment form by mistake.

Strickland, 18, was a student at Cape Fear Community College. He was killed when deputies and police from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNCW) raided the house he was sharing with roommates.

The cops said they raided the house to search for PlayStation 3 machines stolen from UNCW student Justin Raines the day the popular video game consoles were introduced just before Thanksgiving. The police said that Strickland and two friends, Braden Riley and Ryan Mills, were suspected of assaulting Raines and robbing him of the machines.

According to the Wilmington News Observer, university police had issued an arrest warrant that included internet photos of a man they suspected was Mills and two others—whom the cops did not identify—with firearms. Mills did not live with Strickland.

Strickland’s roommate, Mike Rhoton, said the deceased teenager was unarmed. An autopsy report said the fatal bullet hit Strickland in the head after striking another object. Bullet holes in the house showed the shots were fired from the outside. Strickland was also hit near his right shoulder. His dog was shot dead too.

According to news reports, Long had been accused of using excessive force in the past. In 2001 he shot and wounded two teenagers during a traffic stop. Long and the two other cops involved in Strickland’s death, Larry Robinson and Greg Johnson, were placed on leave.

Jon Mehta, a high school friend of Strickland, said the cops should not only be fired but charged with murder. “What happened is horrible and a great injustice,” Mehta told the News Observer. “The police went in there assuming he was guilty. I just think it’s inexcusable.”

District Attorney Ben David said Long fired his gun after an officer used a battering ram to hit the door. Long claims he misidentified the noise of breaking down the door as shots coming from inside the house. “His belief that there was gunfire coming from inside out was not shared by others,” David said at Long’s first court appearance.

"How can an indictment one day not be an indictment the next?" said Strickland's parents, Don and Kathy, in a December 12 statement. "We call on the judge presiding over the grand jury to hold an inquiry into what happened here and make the results public."
 
 
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