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The police response was over the top, but I am going to guess that he loses the case. Police may enter your house without a warrant when based on probable cause. I believe the police had probable cause to search for illegal weapons. D.C. has very strict weapons laws still, despite Heller. The victim called a national suicide hotline and admitted he was depressed and had firearms. He then took pills and went to bed. From the article, he had to turn on his phone when he awoke, so he must have turned it off. I am going to guess that the hotline called the D.C. police to check on him when he did not answer their calls back to see if he was still okay. If the hotline mentioned the guns to Metro PD, which is very probable as part of their concern about him, a quick check would have shown that there were no registered guns at that address.

So, there was probable cause for belief that there were illegal guns inside the house. A search may be made based on exigent circumstances, which his health issue created. thus the search was legal.

Overall, I think the cops overreacted but there is also more to this story than the papers reported. If it came from his pleadings in a lawsuit, it was just one side of the story - his. There is no indication that the media even contacted the police for their version, if they would have commented. Before we make up our minds, we really need both sides of the story.