Peter Conner: CEO Calls Police About Loud Party, Cops Open Fire — On Him, And That’s Not All

Peter Conner, the CEO of a consulting firm in San Antonio, Texas and a professional expert on national security and terrorism, found himself being terrorized — by the city’s police, who opened fire on him when all he did was call to complain about his neighbor’s loud party at 2:30 in the morning.

That’s what Conner charges in a lawsuit against the the city and three of its police officers filed on May 13. But that’s not all that Conner says in the lawsuit.

In addition to showing up at his house and shooting at him, sending the George Washington University business school grad diving for cover behind his car, the police, Conner says, made up a false story claiming that he, for some reason, advanced on them with a gun as if he was about to shoot first.

The police also claimed that the 57-year-old Peter Conner crashed his SUV through the front gate of the subdivision where he resided and failed to stop when private security guards hired by the local homeowners’ association tried to pull him over.

That’s the story that appeared in the local San Antonio media back in June of 2013 when the incident occurred. But in the lawsuit, Conner says the story is total baloney.

“Given plaintiff’s work in national security, these false stories were extremely damaging to his reputation and have caused him tremendous embarrassment,” Conners lawyers write in the legal complaint. “When one Googles plaintiff’s name, the first page of results displays a number of stories indicating that plaintiff fired upon police officers.”

Here’s what actually happened, according to the account in Conner’s suit against the city.

Around 2:30 in the morning on Sunday, June 16 of 2013, Conner reported a loud teenage party just two houses down to the security company that patrolled his neighborhood. He soon saw lights in his backyard and thought that some of the partygoers were invading his property.

So, he threw on a bathrobe, went into his garage, opened the doors and yelled at the “intruders” to get lost.

Suddenly, he was under fire. “Fearing for his life, plaintiff retreated quickly back inside and closed the garage doors.”

Moments later, police came to the door. Conner answered, thinking that the cops were there responding to the gunshots. But when he opened the door, they slapped the cuffs on him and threw into the back of a squad car, in his bathrobe, and left him there for more than an hour.

Conner flatly denied that he had a gun, or made any gesture that would have led the cops to believe that he was about to shoot at them. He’s seeking punitive damages and charging the city in the civil suit with “civil rights violations, assault, malicious prosecution and unlawful arrest.”

Of course, it could have been a lot worse for Peter Conner. At least the police didn’t actually shoot him dead, as they did to the man in the story at this link.

[Images: Wikimedia Commons/LinkedIn]