Well, saying the police "barged into his home" without a warrant isn't exactly what happened. The first call to police came at 6:40 AM, where one police officer responded at 7AM, found the house was dark, saw no signs of life, the complainant wasn't around, and so he left after a few minutes.
The second call to police came in about 2 hours later, and this time three police offers responded at 9:16 AM. Again, the found the house dark, no signs of life, no signs of forced entry, and no one around to speak with. However, when they inspected the carport doorway, behind the glass storm door, the interior door was missing a pane of glass. The officer who responded to both complaints, Officer Williams, said he tried the knob, and it was unlocked. The three officers then went inside and repeatedly, and loudly, announced, "Fairfax County police, is anyone here?"
Entering an unlocked house in certain situations, in case unauthorized people had broken in or someone was injured or in danger inside, is part of the "community caretaker exception" provision that allows for such entry. Granted, and as has been ruled in court, the mere discovery of an open door of a residence, absent some other reasons for concern, is not, in and of itself, a circumstance that could give rise to a reasonable belief that entry is necessary to prevent harm to persons or property. But when you combine the two complaints from two different people more than twp hours apart, and the fact that both times police responded they found no signs of life at the house, and the discovery of the missing pane of glass, it's not unreasonable that the "community caretaker exception" provision was invoked on the suspicion that someone might be in the house without authorization and they might be up to something bad. Guns were drawn just in case. That's why the entire subject of a warrantless entry and search wasn't brought up in court nor were the officers called to testify.
The officers weren't acting in violation of police policy or were abusing their color of authority, at least not at that point. But the problem is, under the warrantless entry of the good intentions of the "community caretaker exception" provision, the police were able to obtain Williamson's name, and then his comments admitting nudity. In addition, after a few minutes of questioning Williams, the officers returned to their cars to ponder what, if anything, to do, and that's when Williams walked outside to his car, while holding an open beer (which was kind of stupid, knowing that three police officers are sitting right there in front of your house, but I digress). The officers advised him that was illegal, but did not cite him. Then, in a brilliant flash of police stupidity, one of the officers asked if they could take his photo. And they did. (Ya can't make this stuff up, I'm tellin' ya)
The police then drove the digital photo over to the second victim's house and showed it to her. No lineup, no multiple photos to view, just the one photo of the accused. Unbelievable. Of course, she identified him immediately.
The officers then went back to Williamson's house and arrested him, intending to charge him with felony indecent exposure because a child was involved, but the magistrate would only charge him with a misdemeanor.
For the cherry on top, after Williams was was processed and released after his arrest, police wouldn't drive him back home, so he began walking back toward Springfield from Fairfax City, about 10 miles. Along the way he got a cell phone call from his employer, who was also his landlord, wanting to know why he was arrested for exposing himself to children. The police had called Williams' boss. Unbelievable. He was fired, and was told to immediately vacate the house.
So it wasn't the warrantless "barging in" that is the problem, per se, it's what all the police did afterwards based on that "community caretaker exception" that they ended up abusing after the fact. And it's what should win him a nice settlement in a civil suit.
