Beware Limited Engagement Timers

So last night I was running the fleet for a bit and we were in Fliet running a plex. A known group of hostiles in assault frigs were buzzing around (3 harpies, Firetail, and maybe another) and I got report they were engaging one of our fleet members on the station. I was unsure about taking it as the hostiles were not outlaws or war targets but I decided 'what the hell' and had the fleet warp to the station to engage.

Unfortunately, we got there and instead of suspect flashies we saw plain neutrals. I gave the order to not engage and warp off but we lost a few ships anyways, particularly the logi that repped our initial bait ship.

What happened?

Our guy in station that got the neutrals to aggressed had a Limited Engagement Timer (teal) with the neutrals from a  previous fight and thus they were able to engage him without gaining suspect timers or gate/station guns. When we arrived on station they were still plain neutral to us and thus we would have died badly should we have engaged due tot he sentry guns. Furthermore, our logi started to rep our guy in the limited engagement thus expanding the limited engagement to include them and make them valid targets to the neutrals while not making them valid targets to any of us.

Long story short, make sure what you are going to fight under sentry guns is Red flashy (i.e. outlaw or suspect or war target) and not just limited engagement flashy (i.e. teal).