The 80-year-old Thompson was in her bedroom the afternoon of Sept. 20, when she heard a terrible crash and shouting. Startled and confused, she grabbed a pistol and was immediately confronted by three Atlanta narcotics officers.

"They had masks covering their face. I thought I was being robbed," she recalled. "They pointed those big guns at me."

Lead officer Gary Smith said repeatedly "Police! Drop the Gun!" from behind his raid shield, according to a police report. Thompson, who had pointed the gun at the intruders, put down the black revolver as officers searched her apartment for a drug dealer named "Hollywood."

No one else was home. No drugs were found. And her pistol was a toy cap gun.

The raid at Thompson's home stunned the members of Atlanta Police Department's narcotics Team 1.

The near-disaster led five members of the team to seek a meeting with their boss, Sgt. Wilbert T. Stallings, according to John Garland, attorney for Jason R. Smith, one of the officers involved. Smith was one of two officers who pleaded guilty last week to killing 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston and lying to get a warrant for the fatal raid on Nov. 21.

"It was shocking enough for the officers to tell a superior, 'We've got to slow down or someone's going to get hurt,'" Garland said. "Everyone was shaken by it. They said, 'We need to take our time, to watch our CIs,' " their confidential informants.

Yet two months later — acting on what he was told was information from a confidential informant — shield man Gary Smith was wounded in a drug raid about a mile away, at the home of Kathryn Johnston. This time, the revolver brandished by the elderly resident was real, and she squeezed off an errant shot. The entry team responded with a 39-shot fusillade, killing Johnston.

No drugs were found in that case, either, except for the ones police planted in the basement.