WILMINGTON - Deputy Christopher Long hovered over the right shoulder of the guy whose job it was to get into Peyton Strickland's home the easy way: knock and be invited inside.

Long's task that evening -- Friday, Dec. 1 -- was riskier. If he and the rest of the New Hanover County Sheriff's paramilitary team had to charge through the front door with a battering ram, Long would be the first inside. He would hunt for guns and order everyone in the house to get down, District Attorney Ben David said.

Long didn't set foot in the house.

Instead, he fell apart in the yard -- crying "Oh Jesus, oh Jesus" -- after he unleashed a string of bullets at Strickland through the door, said Sharika Hankins, a member of the grand jury who heard an agent from the State Bureau of Investigation describe that night, and who disagreed with the group's decision to not indict Long on a charge of second-degree murder.

One bullet blew through Strickland's brain; another struck his chest, barely missing his heart. He died nearly four hours later.

In just two minutes, a search that had come together in a single afternoon collapsed. With it, so did the 10-year career of a law enforcement officer. Long is being criminally investigated for killing Strickland. The sheriff's team was there to clear the way for campus police from UNC-Wilmington to arrest Strickland, 18, on charges of beating a student and robbing him of two PlayStation 3 video game systems two weeks before, according to a search warrant. UNCW police had hoped to find one of the scarce $641 machines at the house and planned to arrest two of Strickland's friends -- Ryan David Mills and Braden Riley -- in the robbery.

Collision course

The day began simply enough for Strickland and Long.

Strickland, a Durham native, didn't have classes that day at Cape Fear Community College, so he and his roommate, Mike Rhoton, cleaned the house, Rhoton said.

Long, meanwhile, had a normal workday. As a full-time member of the sheriff's department's Emergency Response Team, he patrolled the county's schools, ready for action should a shooter attack or someone threaten to set off a bomb, Sheriff Sid Causey said.

Sometime that afternoon, UNCW Police Chief David Donaldson called the sheriff's office, Causey said. The campus police needed help with their investigation into the beating of a UNCW freshman and the theft of the PlayStations two weeks before. Causey was out, so a secretary patched him through to Chief Deputy Tom Parker, Causey said.

Donaldson asked whether the UNCW officers -- restricted from policing off-campus -- could get help from the Emergency Response Team for a high-risk search on Long Leaf Acres Drive. Parker, the only man besides the sheriff who can mobilize the team to help another agency, sent the team's commander, Lt. Doug Price, to meet with Donaldson and get more details, Causey said.

UNCW officers and Price pored over a map of the quiet residential neighborhood where Strickland lived, Causey said. Price read a draft of the search warrant and checked out an Internet picture of Mills, 20, of Durham, who police suspected was Strickland's accomplice. In the photo, which was attached to the search warrant, Mills is flanked by two armed buddies, smirking as he clutches a shotgun.

Price agreed that it might be a dangerous trip to the house on Long Leaf Acres Drive. He told the sheriff later that day that the team ought to get involved, Causey said.

Price made a few passes by the mustard brown brick rental home so he could draw a map and show his men, Causey said. He called nine of his deputies together that evening and spelled out the plan:

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