In Fitchburg, Massachusetts, Judy Sanchez was at home with her three-year-old daughter when she heard pounding on her door. Before she could do anything, a chainsaw suddenly came tearing through the door and agents then kicked in the remainder with guns drawn. It then got worse . . .
The agents ordered Sanchez to the floor and would not let her go and get her daughter who was crying in the next room. They did tell her to grab her pit bull puppy, which proceeded to pee out of fear. She lay in the dog’s urine for over thirty minutes before the agents realized that they were looking for apartment 2f. She lives in apartment 2R.
Of course, it might have been difficult to read the apartment number since they just chainsawed the front door.
She said that she received a rather perfunctory apology and “Here’s the phone number for your landlord to get reimbursed for the door, have a good day.”
It is not clear if this was a “no knock” warrant — a practice that has been repeatedly criticized as judges allow police to burst into homes based on their statement that the subjects could be dangerous. Even with “knock and announce” searches, police often knock just seconds before the door comes off the hinges.
The use of the chainsaw, of course, adds a horror film aspect to the scene . . . not that it needed it.
Source: CBS as first seen on Reddit.
Oh, the toddler and the dog both have good claims for damages. The kid cried and the dog peed. The toddler should be examined by a psychologist. It might be interesting to see if the kid is set off by loud noises like a chain saw outside the house. Bring a tape of the noise and the kids reaction to court. When picking the jury get dog lovers on the jury and parents of young kids.
TWO YEAR investigation and they still get the wrong apartment? Two years?
Somebody needs to go back for some retraining, and a second grade remedial reading course while they are at it.
Masstexicans gone wild….
It took these Brainiacs over 30 minutes to discover they were in the wrong apartment?! (The FBI claim it only took them 15 minutes to discover their error, but, hey, they probably can’t tell time either.)
“Eventually the feds figured out they were in the wrong place and arrested the right suspect. The raid had been part of a two-year long investigation.
‘The looks on their faces when they knew they got the wrong door was priceless,’ she recalls. ‘They looked at each other dumbfounded.'”
Two year investigation and they couldn’t even get the address right.
Lord love a duck … these dudes actually go home and breed!
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/02/02/article-2095411-1190149B000005DC-191_634x629.jpg
Why was it so bad that she had to lay in some dog pee? It was not poo.
If an agent lives in your neighborhood (fellow dogs only) make sure that you leave a little something in his path of least resistance to his car so that he steps in something in the a.m.
In the former Soviet Union they used battering rams. They are quieter and one doesnt have to pull that cord to get them started just before entry. Of course in the former Soviet Union the story would not have made the major newspapers, CNN and Fox News like it did over here. It did make the major news over here did it not?
At least they didn’t shot the puppy. Many cops wouldn’t be able to resist. Feeling threatened, you know.
Mike, a better remedy than the department paying treble damages might be to incarcerate and strip the pensions of any officers acting illegally.
I think you’d see an immediate increase in the percentage of officers acting responsibly.
The good news is that the FBI did not shoot the puppy to “show them who’s boss”.
SWAT teams read a different manual.
Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction. Pamela Geller, on her web site, http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/about.html
I’ve read about so many similar wrongly raided homes. Perhaps it’s at least time for the FBI to have a Victims Support and Recovery unit.
Law enforcement routine does knuckleheaded things. When I was in college, a sheriff’s deputy came to the dorm to arrest me for non-payment of alimony. Except, I wasn’t married (this was in a dorm!) and I had a different first name (and different by more than a couple letters). I used to do screenings for police departments–I know that that when they have money to hire, they don’t always have Einsteins in their applicant pools, but the Fibbies should be able to be a little more selective and get people who can read and double check info before bringing in a chainsaw.
The FBI has had a long history of doing such things as ignoring Constitutionally protected liberties. This has spanned many, many decades. In the time of J.Edgar Hoover the policy was created by him and protected by his extra-legal spying on those with power. He was in a position to virtually blackmail anyone he chose. Thus his fiefdom grew. I doubt Hoover’s death has changed much in the FBI because institutionally his sense of policy entitlement probably still prevails. This is sad because the FBI has the resources brainpower and capability of being a great law enforcement organization.
Their institutional arrogance, however, has led them through various scandals such as their magnificent crime lab falsifying evidence a few years ago. Once an institutional tradition of being “The Law”, or above the law, has taken hold in a bureaucracy it is hard to change. This is true since Hoover’s death, because most Director’s have been mere political creatures, unable to understand the bureaucracy they managed and thus either seduced, or stymied by the “old hands” in the Agency.
What can be done, at least short-term would be a law making Federal LEO
agencies responsible for treble damages for the illegal actions and/or mistakes of their agents. In this case there is no excuse for what occurred. Once the apartment was secured, which I assume was quickly, then there should have been some urgent effort to find if a mistake had been made. In any event, no matter how heinous the crime a potential defendant, offering no resistance, should not have been treated as this woman was.
I’m sure there will be those who will respond to this saying that I don’t understand the intricacies ad strains of police work. That will be followed up with the standard justifications of acting under color of legitimate LEO procedure. All such rationalizations will beg the question of why the Agency
mis-identified an apartment whose door they were going to break through? They not only put this woman and her daughter at risk, they probably, due to the tumult, allowed their perpetrator to get away.
A chainsaw loudly shredding the front door might be construed by some individuals as being a dangerous threat to their family’s life and well-being. That being said and if it was a no-knock raid, who’s to blame someone from shooting at that door with a high-power rifle? Officers would be lost and an innocent citizen executed.
No-knock raids are an extremely dangerous activity, dangerous enough to warrant careful planning and precise execution. This department failed miserably and is obviously not capable of such a maneuver. I’m pretty sure I’d be damaged in the amout of $5 million or so after such an abusive assault.
So there will be predictable outrage about this. But if the guys had gotten the right house and pulled this same stunt it would be ok with most people. Right?
The real problem is not that they got the wrong house its that LEOs have pretty much carte blanch when entering and arresting. This leads them to make some horrible choices without regard to their safety or the well-being of the people they are supposed to serve and protect.
Dean Fox 1, February 2, 2012 at 8:57 am
This is outrageous … There needs to be greater accountability for how law enforcement treat suspects, while we don’t expect them to be care bears we also don’t expect them to be inhumane either.
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Oh, lordy lordy Dean, have you no British regal blood in you still?
The law has been the king can do no wrong since we fled “that place” (“I’m trying to get as far away from myself as I can” – B. Dylan, Things Have Changed) to become those we fled from.
You know, the dog chasing its tail thingy.
I guess they smelled cannabis, so it’s ok.
National news, where are you?
Well the chainsaw does add real flair!
Again, like so many similar stories, this is the govt. “messaging” citizens. They are telling us they can and will do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want. This is what happens when you get rid of the rule of law. There is nothing to stop anything, no matter how heinous, when committed by govt. authorities.
Glen Greenwald makes this same point about the Obama drone program and the ACLU’s suit against the administration’s use of drones for killing people. Again, with no rule of law, literally anything can be done without consequence to citizens of this and other nations.
We need to recognize the serious nature of this state of affairs. People may think nothing will ever happen to them, but this simply is not the case. We must care about each other enough to restore the rule of law.
Over at Warisacrime.org they have a story on the successful peaceful movement to restore justice to the society of Norway. It shows there is a way to confront the powerful without violence and to be successful.
This is outrageous. The FBI does a tough job but there is no excuse for how the woman was treated after they broke in; laying in dog pee and not being able to comfort a crying child, even if she was guilty this kind of thing is sickening.
There needs to be greater accountability for how law enforcement treat suspects, while we don’t expect them to be care bears we also don’t expect them to be inhumane either.
Evidently they also have the wrong brain.
A recent study indicates that these type of people are barely smarter than rocks:
(Psychological Science Journal).