Huffington Magazine Issue 75 | Page 42

JIM URQUHART/AP POLICING THE POLICE fives. Then they broke down Stewart’s door with a battering ram. The police claim to have knocked and announced themselves several times. But Stewart said he never heard them. He worked the graveyard shift at a local Walmart and was asleep at the time. Awaking to the sound of armed men storming into his house, he jumped out of bed, naked, threw on a bathrobe and grabbed his 9-millimeter Beretta. HUFFINGTON 11.17.13 Who shot first remains in dispute. But after exchanging fire with the officers for about 20 minutes, Stewart dove out a bedroom window and attempted to take shelter in the shed behind his house. The police opened fire on the shed, “lighting it up,” as one officer later put it. Stewart, who had been shot in the arm and the hip, crawled out and surrendered. One of the members of the strike force, Jared Francom, 30, had been shot seven times, and died at the scene. Stewart was arrested, taken to the hospital for his injuries, and Michael Stewart holds a photo of his son, Matthew, who was accused of shooting six police officers and killing one during a drug raid in Ogden.