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<\/a>The shooting<\/p>\nNearly a dozen London Police officers surrounded Harless\u2019 home at 511 Vanzant Road at 11:50 p.m. on Dec. 21, 2023. Surveillance video from a neighbor captured officers banging on the door, followed by gunshots.<\/p>\n
Kentucky State Police say one of those officers shot and killed Harless.<\/p>\n
According to dispatch audio, London Police were attempting to serve a warrant for 489 Vanzant Road \u2014 not Harless\u2019 address at 511 Vanzant Road.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt breaks our heart every time we hear them gunshots, knowing our brother was on the other side of that door,\u201d said Angie Martin, Harless\u2019 sister.<\/p>\n
The investigation<\/p>\n
Requests for a copy of the warrant have been repeatedly denied, but state police have filed their own warrants for evidence tied to their investigation. Those warrants reveal London Police were looking for stolen lawn equipment.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone needs to be held accountable for busting in our brother\u2019s door in the middle of the night over a weedeater and within a minute and 30 seconds shooting and killing him,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
London Police Chief Bobby Day was at Harless\u2019 home that night. He says he\u2019s waiting for answers from KSP\u2019s ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody wants to get those answers to the people of London, Laurel County, the community, as well as the Harless family, more than we do,\u201d Day said.<\/p>\n
Legal action<\/p>\n
The family has filed a lawsuit against the city, the police department and the officers involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a botched investigation, a violation of Mr. Harless\u2019s rights. They had no right to be on his property. They certainly had no right to barge into his home and take his life,\u201d said Ashley Abaray, the family\u2019s attorney.<\/p>\n
Court documents show the lawn equipment officers were looking for was taken from a property belonging to Laurel County Judge Executive David Westerfield. He called Laurel County dispatch the day after Harless\u2019 death for information about the theft case.<\/p>\n
Kentucky State Police\u2019s investigation into Harless\u2019 death remains ongoing. The case has been handed to special prosecutor Matthew Leveridge, the Commonwealth\u2019s Attorney for Russell and Wayne Counties, who will decide whether to file criminal charges.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 WKYT. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON, Ky. (WKYT) – One year after Kentucky State Police say Doug Harless was shot and killed inside…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,5554,38158,393,4884,257,40178,199346,16,15,107605],"class_list":{"0":"post-651416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-community","10":"tag-doug-harless","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-london","14":"tag-london-police","15":"tag-one-year","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-vigil"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115771686246195239","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}