How London, KY police killed an uninvolved man while trying to serve a warrant
It’s been a key question since London police fatally shot a Laurel County man late on Dec. 23: How did officers end up at the home of the man, who has not been identified as a suspect in the investigation of stolen lawn and garden equipment?
The addresses available in the local 911 and property tax systems provide some insight. They don’t match the address numbers posted on the front wall of the house where the shooting occurred, according to local officials.
Twelve minutes before midnight, London officers, who had a court-issued search warrant, wanted to inspect the home at 489 Vanzant Road.
They wound up at a double-wide mobile home with a street address of 511 Vanzant Road. That is where Douglas Harless, the shooting victim lived.
But on a map at the office of Don McFadden, the county property valuation administrator, the address of Harless’ house is 489 Vanzant Road. The position is typically known as PVA.
McFadden said the local 911 system provides his office the addresses shown on that map, indicating the house also would be listed as 489 Vanzant in the 911 system.
There is another mobile home about 250 feet from Harless’ house that has a street address of 489 Vanzant, but is shown on the PVA map as 525 Vanzant.
A county employee who designates addresses on properties for the 911 system refused comment Thursday.
On Friday, the director of the 911 dispatching system told the Herald-Leader he could not comment on individual addresses in the system.
London Mayor Randall Weddle told the Herald-Leader police used information from the 911 system and the PVA to confirm the location of 489 Vanzant — Harless’ home in those records — in preparing to serve the warrant
So while the numbers on the house don’t match the address on the warrant, the address in the 911 system and PVA’s office do.
The property card in the PVA’s office for 489 Vanzant shows a photo of the mobile home where the shooting occurred, the one with the number 511 on the front wall.
The PVA map does not show a residence listed as 511 Vanzant.
Local officials have said the Kentucky State Police, which investigates shootings by police in the state, have asked them not to comment on the case.
However, Weddle said he could provide limited confirmation about the address discrepancy because his administration learned of it through its own separate inquiry.
A central question remains unanswered: Why are there different numbers on the house and the PVA map?
Monty Hart, whose father owns the mobile home where Harless, the shooting victim, lived and several others in the neighborhood, said he takes care of the rentals because his father has dementia.
Hart said the homes were numbered before he took over managing them, and he didn’t know how the numbers were assigned.
However, Hart said his father wouldn’t have randomly put numbers on the houses, so he believes some authority, such as the U.S. Postal Service, had designated the addresses.
Hart said the utilities at the home use the 511 Vanzant address.
According to a warrant requested by James Royal, a detective with the Kentucky State Police, London officers went to the rural Lily community to serve a search warrant. Lily is about 90 miles from Lexington.
A separate citation said a man named Hobert Buttery — who once lived across the street from the house where the shooting occurred — told police he had stolen a heater and Stihl weed eater in London.
Police arrested Buttery in Manchester a little over four hours before going to Harless’ house.
London officers attempted to serve the search warrant at 11:48 p.m., , according to the narrative in Royal’s search-warrant request. The warrant said 489 Vanzant Road.
Royal listed the house as 511 Vanzant in his warrant.
Royal said Lt. Andrew Jackson with the London police told him officers knocked on the door of the house, and that Harless acknowledged their presence but refused to open the door.
After police knocked several more times with no response, they knocked down the door, officials said.
When they did, Harless, who was near the door, raised a pistol toward them and a London officer fired several shots from a rifle, killing Harless, according to the account London police gave state police.
Tina Asher lives next door to the house where the shooting occurred and said security cameras on her house captured video of the incident.
Asher said the video showed four officers approach the porch of Harless’ house, three armed with rifles.
The numbers 511 on the house where Harless lived are small, but are posted on the front wall of the home to the right of the steps onto the porch.
Video Asher provided showed the front of the house where the numbers are posted was brightly lit by vehicle headlights as officers approached the steps.
Asher said police identified themselves and told Harless to come outside, and they shot immediately after breaching the door.
Hart, the landlord, said a London police officer was in the neighborhood earlier the day of the shooting, and Hart talked with him.
The officer was asking how to find Buttery, Hart said.
Hart told the officer he had gone to court to evict Buttery more than a year ago and that the mobile home he rented, numbered as 515 on the street, had been vacant since.
Hart said the mobile home next to that one — and just down the street from where Harless lived — also had been vacant for more than a year after he evicted a tenant from it.
That house is numbered 489 on the street but 525 on the PVA map.
Hart said he didn’t know if the police pulled in at Harless’ home that day to check the address. He said if police had served the warrant in the day instead of at night, the tragedy likely could have been avoided.
“It’d been a better way to prevent this,” he said.
Asher and Hart said Harless was a nice man who didn’t cause problems in the neighborhood.
Harless worked as a maintenance man for an apartment complex, Hart said.
He enjoyed spending time with his family, watching NASCAR races and listening to music, his obituary said.
“Anytime I needed someone to help me, he’d help me,” Hart said. “You’re talking about a good person.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2025 at 12:58 PM.
