We have previously discussed our concerns over the seemingly exponential increase in “no knock” raids in the country where police give no warning before raiding a home. (here and here and here and here and here). A tragedy in Atlanta will only increase those concerns for many. Atlanta police say that they purchased drugs at a home and returned with a no-knock warrant late at 3 a.m. to arrest Wanis Thometheva, 30. They burst into the home and threw a stun grenade which landed next to the head of a 19-month-old sleeping in his crib and exploded. The baby is in serious condition and is in a medically induced coma. The pictures of the baby are too disturbing to post. The police found no drugs or weapons or even the man they were seeking to arrest in the raid. Update: Police have declared that the state officials have concluded that no further investigation is warranted into the raid or the use of the grenade.
The raid left a charred portable crib. The explosion opened up a gash on the baby’s chest, left one lung inoperable, and left the baby breathing on a respirator with a 50-percent chance of survival.
Cornelia police Chief Rick Darby said that a multi jurisdictional force carried out the raid after drugs were purchased. The police cited the belief of guns being present as the basis for the no-knock warrant.
Notably, police arrested the suspect at another home and the family had nothing to do with the crime. There is always a risk of such innocent individuals being in a home — making the use of such grenades an obvious risk to the very young and the elderly.
Darby says that the police did not see any toys or children clothes that would have warned them of an infant being present. He says that his team is very upset over the injury to the child.
For those who are critical over the increase in no-knock warrants, the incident raises that same concern that magistrates are now granting these warrants with little thought and they are becoming the rule rather than the exception. The question is whether such injuries could be avoided if police announced themselves and demand entry. Police now routinely ask and receive warrants that waive the constitutional requirement to “knock and announcement.” Not only is this requirement codified in the U.S. Code, but it is viewed as a factor in determining if a search or seizure is reasonable under the fourth amendment. In 1995, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Wilson v. Arkansas that the requirement was indeed part of the constitutional test and in Richards v. Wisconsin the Court later rejected categorical waivers for “knock and announcement” for cases like drug investigations. Police must show on a case-by-case basis that they have reasonable suspicion of exigent circumstances.
Source: WSBTV
Reblogged this on angrymanspeaks and commented:
There is nothing I can say.
Paul C. Schulte
“This is how Waco started. And this is why Tim McVeigh was upset about Waco, it was the children that were killed.”
= = =
And so he went and killed more children because … logic?
Max-1 – revenge
Personanongrata,
I have to agree. I am looking forward to the day these kind of domestic terrorism cases are heard in front of a Judge.
Who protects the people FROM the police?
BK, Surveillance done correctly is hard work. Cops hate hard work. I bet the surveillance was half assed.
Holy cow. This is outrageous.
The house was under surveillance but the cops missed the four carseats in the car they had to walk around to get to the door they broke down?
This entire family has been seriously traumatized.
I hope every one of these cops sees that toddler every day and every night – nightmares day and night. If any member of the swat team is a decent human being he will resign. I don’t expect that any of them will be punished by law enforcement.
The Sheriff has already said that there is no need for an investigation.
bettykath – and they told the mother it was blood from a broken tooth, not a crushed chest
Chief Darby is being disingenuous.
A “stun grenade” (probably a flashbang) is a potentially lethal weapon and like all lethal weapons you do not discharge it until you know who is in the line of fire. Anything different is criminal negligence.
(For those of you who dispute that a flashbang is potentially lethal, try this experiment – hold a flashbang in your hand and set it off. Your spouse will be opening your ketchup bottles from now on.)
JK, I see the bill forbidding Feds to arrest medical cannabis patients was introduced by a libertarian Republican Rohrbacher of Ca., and got bipartisan support. Your link has the vote being 219-189.
James Knauer, Thanks for the Silver Lining Report regarding the House passing a sane no arrest law. However, the thuggish AG doesn’t feel compelled to follow laws. Nobody is “The boss of him,” in his mind.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/breaking-news/toddler-critically-injured-by-flash-bang-during-po/nf9XM/
The family of the injured baby, including three older sisters, were visiting from Wisconsin after their house burned down. There is no indication they were involved in any illegal activity.
Sheriff Joey Terrell claims that he contacted the GBI and was told no further investigation was needed.
Seriously? No further investigation needed when they nearly blew off a baby’s head? Aren’t police supposed to have a clear view of the area before tossing a flashbang grenade?
They arrested the man they were after at a different house. Is it somehow strategically impossible to have watched the house and arrested him when he left?
Disgusting story. People should be losing their jobs over this kind of over reach.. I hope the family can go after the PD and the city to get some compensation for this violent crime. What ever happened to Serve and Protect?
The use of SWAT and flash bang hand grenades for warrant service is terrorism.
Cornelia police Chief Rick Darby is an apologist for the use of state violence.
How long did the Cornelia
policeclowns surveil the home?There were multiple children present.
RAW VIDEO: Mother of toddler injured by stun grenade speaks out
http://www.wsbtv.com/videos/news/raw-video-mother-of-toddler-injured-by-stun/vCcXWC/
Cops reliving their favorite cop shows.
Nick, my friend, the ‘limit(s)’ is/are the Fourth Amendment and the Fourteenth. Period.And Karen, their ‘risking their life’ is what they get paid to do. They can risk their lives all they want, just not MY life.
Reblogged this on Citizens, not serfs.
Not only is there nothing about finding any illegal guns or drugs, but the guy they were looking for was not even in the house.
SWAT team throws flashbangs, raids wrong home due to open WiFi network
Whoops! Those anonymous Internet threats came from up the block.
by Nate Anderson
June 28 2012
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/swat-team-throws-flashbangs-raids-wrong-home-due-to-open-wifi-network/
Excerpt:
The long-standing, heavily documented militarization of even small-town American police forces was always going to create problems when it met anonymous Internet threats. And so it has, again—this time in Evansville, Indiana, where officers acted on some Topix postings threatening violence against local police. They then sent an entire SWAT unit to execute a search warrant on a local house, one in which the front door was open and an 18-year old woman sat inside watching TV.
The cops brought along TV cameras, inviting a local reporter to film the glorious operation. In the resulting video, you can watch the SWAT team, decked out in black bulletproof vests and helmets and carrying window and door smashers, creep slowly up to the house. At some point, they apparently “knock” and announce their presence—though not with the goal of getting anyone to come to the door. As the local police chief admitted later to the Evansville Courier & Press, the process is really just “designed to distract.” (SWAT does not need to wait for a response.)
Officers break the screen door and a window, tossing a flashbang into the house—which you can see explode in the video. A second flashbang gets tossed in for good measure a moment later. SWAT enters the house.
On the news that night, the reporter ends his piece by talking about how this is “an investigation that hits home for many of these brave officers.”
But the family in the home was released without any charges as police realized their mistake. Turns out the home had an open WiFi router, and the threats had been made by someone outside the house. Whoops.
Five Unnecessary SWAT Team Raids Gone Terribly Wrong
Sunday, 15 December 2013
By Kevin Mathews, Care2 | Report
http://truth-out.org/news/item/20639-five-unnecessary-swat-team-raids-gone-terribly-wrong
Excerpt;
If you’ve noticed that police forces are becoming increasingly militarized lately, it’s not just your imagination. In the past two decades, SWAT team activity has increased by 1,500%. It’s not that life has gotten that much more dangerous, it’s that authorities have chosen to respond to even innocent situations as if they were in a warzone. The problem is not contained to urban areas, either. A full 80% of towns with 25,000 to 50,000 residents now have their own SWAT teams, up from just 13% in the 1980s.
The Baltimore Sun did an analysis of SWAT deployment in Maryland and found the militarized team was sent out nearly five times each day. Only 6% of SWAT-involved incidents were for extreme emergency situations (bank robberies, barricades, hostage holding) – most were for search warrants or apprehending suspects involved in trivial matters like misdemeanors.
This shift toward a heavy reliance on SWAT teams does not fulfill the mission of “protecting and serving.” If anything, the violent tactics put everyone – including bystanders – in more danger. Let’s not understate the psychology of the situation either – when you dress police in war gear, they’re going to feel like soldiers out for a kill, not officers of peace.
Here are five examples when the SWAT team was wholly unnecessary:
1. Slaying a Marine for Unsubstantiated Drug Suspicions
U.S. Marine Jose Guerena awoke one morning to hear noise outside of his house; believing he was being robbed, he hid his wife and kid in the closet and grabbed a gun for defense. It turns out, however, a SWAT team had gathered to search Guerena’s house for drugs due to having a family member involved in illicit activities. Notably, police acknowledged that no evidence was ever found to connect Guerena to selling drugs – including in the two-year police investigation leading up to the raid.
Within ten seconds of entering the house, the SWAT team shot at Guerena 71 times, hitting him a fatal 22 times. Though SWAT officials would later attempt to claim Guerena shot first, evidence proved that he never fired his rifle. Ultimately, the government admitted it was wrong and agreed to pay $3.4 million, but the payout was not accompanied by job terminations or policy changes, of course.
2. Killing a Baby Deer
When authorities learned that a young deer, Giggles, was being nursed back to health at a no-kill animal shelter in Wisconsin, a heavily armed SWAT team busted into the shelter. Apparently, state law prevents people from keeping wildlife, and the SWAT team took their job very seriously… by euthanizing Giggles, who would have otherwise been sent to a wildlife sanctuary the next day. In trying to justify the excessive force, a spokesperson compared the deer raid to a “drug bust.”
3. Copyright Infringement
When Atlanta police thought that DJ Drama might be involved in illegal music piracy, they didn’t hesitate to bring out the big guns – literally. A SWAT team raided DJ Drama’s studio as he worked at the request of the RIAA. Yes, even copyright law is pursued with militarized police now.
Authorities later attempted to justify their extreme response by explaining that “bootleggers” generally keep drugs and weapons on hand. Granted, nothing of the sort was found in the studio, but you can never be too careful when it comes to potential copyright infringement.