@northwesty I a familiar with the various laws you mention. Police officers often lie to justify their actions to fit into one of these exceptions; in the Tuscaloose case they did not, which is pretty amazing. There was a similar case at Mizzou recently where the police claimed to smell pot to justify an entry and search. Of course there was no pot; it was all a lie.
In an “open doorway” case, they must see some crime to enter an apartment. They saw no crime. There was no “hot pursuit.” The guy was charged with resisting arrest, but he was not being arrested for anything. One of the elements of resisting arrest is that you must be subject to a lawful arrest. There was only one charge: resisting arrest. This cannot stand by itself.
The police chief is on the record as saying these kids were in the right and the police officers were in the wrong. That’s all that really needs to be said. He said the officers had absolute no right to enter the apartment and that the kids were absolutely in the right. The fact is that police officers are not always fired when they do something wrong. Now, as for your claim that the legally smart thing to do would be to step outside, as soon as he does so he can be arrested for public drunk, so that would not have been legally smart.
What is needed is for the police officer who grabbed the guy to be prosecuted and to go to jail.