Cops say they're responsible for their friend's death.
And they're not the ones who pulled the trigger.

The sheriff's office now says Marcus Bradford would still be alive if he and two others didn't go into the Terrace Heights home with guns last week.
Investigators think the trio intended to steal drugs and money.

It's not to say the guy living at the house, Luis Acevedo, is off the hook .
But the sheriff's office believes he was just protecting his friend and baby last Thursday morning...
When Bradford, Khiry Jackson and Lawrence Adams showed up at the door.
Investigators say Acevedo admitted he used to deal drugs with the suspects, but swears that stopped 8 or 9 months ago.
Jackson and Adams now have murder charges thrown on their drug and gun charges.
The so-called 150 pounds of marijuana they hoped to find in the house, looks like a myth.

"The subjects involved were driving an El Camino. It would be difficult, in my opinion, to fit 150 pounds of marijuana in an El Camino with three subjects in the front seat," says Chief Campbell.

Campbell says it's possible another person's involved.
Cops are looking into it--as well as Acevedo's past.
But they say a pair of gloves found on the victim and in the getaway car indicate this was a burglary.
Autopsy results today show Bradford died of a bullet to the neck.