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SWAT Raids: Knock, Knock-You’re Dead
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America’s nightly news reports are awash with stories of horrible crimes, murder, kidnapping, and a host of other atrocious violence. Graphic images and startling eye witness accounts inundate the airwaves and printing presses-hypnotizing it’s viewers and readers alike.
We are shown a shadowy world of street crime, gang violence, and indiscriminate killing-but what if the crimes and killings are being committed by police officers themselves?
*****
Gonzalo Guizan
May 18, 2008—CT
May 18, 2008—CT
Police in Easton conducted a heavily-armed drug raid on the home of Ronald Terebesi, Jr, after a woman reported that she had witnessed drug activity at the house that morning. They began the raid by throwing flash bang grenades through Terebesi's windows, then battering down his door and storming the house. According to police, an unarmed man, Gonzalo Guizan, charged the raiding officers, at which point they shot and killed him.
The subsequent search yielded a small amount of cocaine residue and some cocaine pipes. Terebesi was charged with drug possession and drug paraphernalia.
Source: Maggie Caldwell, "Woman's report triggered police raid" Easton Courier, June 6, 2008.
Tarika Wilson
January 4, 2008—OH
While executing a "high risk" search warrant, Lima, Ohio, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia shot and killed Tarika Wilson, 26, and injured her one-year-old son.
Tarika's boyfriend, Anthony Terry, was arrested and charged with suspicion of possession of crack cocaine. Subsequently, Sgt. Chavalia was charged with negligent homicide in the Wilson's death and charged with negligent assault in the wounding of her son, Sincere, whose finger had to be amputated. On August 4, 2008, Chavalia was acquitted of all charges.
Sources: Greg Sowinksi, "Woman killed, child injured during Lima drug raid," The Lima News, January 5, 2008 / John Seewer, "Lima Officer Charged in Fatal Shooting," AP, Mar 17, 2008. / John Seewer, "Ohio Officer Acquitted of Killing Mom Holding Baby," AP, August 4, 2008.
In 1997 alone, the Pentagon
handed over more than 1.2 million
pieces of military equipment to
local police departments.
Kathryn Johnston
November 21, 2006—GA
November 21, 2006—GA
Acting on a tip from a confidential informant, police conduct a no-knock raid on the home of 88 year old Kathryn Johnston.
Johnston, described by neighbors as feeble and afraid to open her door at night, opens fire on officers as they burst into her home. Three of the officers are wounded before Johnston is shot and killed.
Relatives say that Johnston lived alone, and legally owned a gun because she was fearful of intruders. She lived in the home for 17 years. Police claim that they find a small amount of marijuana in Johnston's home, but none of the cocaine, computers, money, or equipment described in the affidavit that was used to obtain a warrant.
There are now allegations of a police cover-up.
Developing...
Source: Shaila Dewan and Brenda Goodman, "Atlanta Officers Suspended in Inquiry on Killing in Raid " The New York Times, November 28, 2006.
Michael Meluzzi
July 8, 2005—FL
In July 2005, a Sarasota, Florida SWAT team conducts a drug raid on a home where several children are playing in the front yard.
The SWAT team descends from a van, deploys flash bang grenades, then swarms the home. 44-year-old Michael Meluzzi, who had a criminal record, begins to flee as he sees the armed agents exit the van. Police chase Meluzzi down and fire a Taser gun at him, partially hitting him.
According to Officer Alan Devaney, Meluzzi then reached into his waistband, leading Devaney to believe he was armed. Devaney opened fire, killing Meluzzi.
Police would find no weapon on or near Meluzzi's body.
Sources:"Suspect is stunned, then fatally shot, " Associated Press, July 11, 2005. Latisha R. Gray, "Fatal drug raid raises questions; Residents ask why a SWAT team came in with children present," Sarasota Herald-Tribune, July 31, 2005, p. BS1.
Cheryl Lynn Noel
January 21, 2005—MD
January 21, 2005—MD
Baltimore County, Maryland police descend on a home in the Dundalk neighborhood at around 5 a.m. on a narcotics warrant. They deploy a flash bang grenade, then quickly subdue the first-floor occupants -- a man and two young adults.
When officers enter the second-floor bedroom of Cheryl Llynn Noel, they break open the door to find the middle-aged woman in her bed, frightened, and pointing a handgun at them. One officer fires three times. Noel dies at the scene.
Friends and acquaintances described Noel as "a wonderful person," who ran a Bible study group on her lunch breaks. One man collected 200 signatures from friends, neighbors, and coworkers vouching for her character.
Officers conducted the raid after finding marijuana seeds in the Noels' garbage can.
Sources: Joseph M. Giordano, "Woman is shot, killed by police in drug raid," Dundalk Eagle, January 27, 2005. / Joseph M. Giordano, "Petition reflects anguish," Dundalk Eagle, March 31, 2005.
Alberta Spruill
May 16, 2003—NY
May 16, 2003—NY
On May 16, 2003, a dozen New York City police officers storm an apartment building in Harlem on a no-knock warrant. They're acting on a tip from a confidential informant, who told them a convicted felon was dealing drugs and guns from the sixth floor.
There is no felon. The only resident in the building is Alberta Spruill, described by friends as a "devout churchgoer." Before entering the apartment, police deploy a flash bang grenade. The blinding, deafening explosion stuns the 57 year-old city worker, who then slips into cardiac arrest. She dies two hours later.
A police investigation would later find that the drug dealer the raid team was looking for had been arrested days earlier. He couldn't possibly have been at Spruill's apartment because he was in custody. The officers who conducted the raid did no investigation to corroborate the informant's tip. A police source told the New York Daily News that the informant in the Spruill case had offered police tips on several occasions, none of which had led to an arrest. His record was so poor, in fact, that he was due to be dropped from the city's informant list.
Nevertheless, his tip on the ex-con in Spruill's building was taken to the Manhattan district attorney's office, who approved of the application for a no-knock entry. It was then taken to a judge, who issued the warrant resulting in Spruill's death. From tip to raid, the entire "investigation" and execution were over in a matter of hours.
Spruill's death triggered an outpouring of outrage and emotion in New York and inspired dozens of victims of botched drug raids, previously afraid to tell their stories, to come forward.
Still, the number of real, tangible reforms to result from the raid were few. Though the number of no-knocks in New York has by most indications declined, there's still no real oversight or transparency in how they're granted and carried out. And victims of botched raids still have no real recourse, other than to hope the media gets hold of their story.
Sources: Austin Fenner, Maki Becker, and Michelle McPhee, "Cops' Tragic Grenade Raid; Storm wrong apt., woman dies," New York Daily News, May 17, 2003, p.3. / William K. Rashbaum, "Report by police outlines mistakes in ill-fated raid," New York Times, May 31, 2003, p. A1. / Fernanda Santos and Patrice O'Shaughnessy, "Snitch had shaky rep," New York Daily News, May 18, 2003. Leonard Levitt, "Focus on Kelly, Race After Raid," Newsday, May 19, 2003, p. A2.
Jose Colon
April 19, 2002—NY
April 19, 2002—NY
On April 19, 2002, police prepare to conduct a heavily-armed late-night drug raid (it includes a helicopter) on a home in Bellport, New York. As four paramilitary unit officers rush across the front lawn, 19 year-old Jose Colon emerges from the targeted house.
According to the police account of the raid, as officers approach, one of them trips over a tree root, then falls forward, into the lead officer, causing his gun to accidentally discharge three times. One of the three bullets hits Colon in the side of the head, killing him.
Police say they screamed at Colon to "get down" as they approached, though two witnesses told a local newscast that, (a) their screams were inaudible over the sound of the helicopter, and (b) the officers appeared to be frozen before the shooting -- no one tripped. One of the witnesses later recanted his story after speaking with police.
Colon was never suspected of buying or selling drugs. Police proceeded with the raid, and seized eight ounces of marijuana. A subsequent investigation found no criminal wrongdoing on the part of police. The family of Colon -- who had no criminal record and was months away from becoming the first member of his family to earn a bachelor's degree -- is pursuing a lawsuit.
Sources: Samuel Bruchey, "Victim's girlfriend says shooting wasn't an accident," Newsday, April 26, 2002. / Samuel Bruchey, "Cops' account disputed again," Newsday, April 27, 2002. / Bruce Lambert, "No indictment in shooting of young man in Suffolk raid," New York Times, August 9, 2002.
By the early 1980s there were 3,000
annual SWAT deployments, by
1996 there were 30,000, and by
2001 there were 40,000
Tony Martinez
December 20, 2001—TX
December 20, 2001—TX
On December 20, 2001, police in Travis County, Texas storm a mobile home on a no-knock drug warrant.
19-year-old Tony Martinez, nephew of the man named in the warrant, is asleep on the couch at the time of the raid. Martinez was never suspected of any crime. When Martinez rises from the couch as police break into the home, deputy Derek Hill shoots Martinez in the chest, killing him.Martinez is unarmed.
A grand jury later declined to indict Hill in the shooting. The shooting occurred less than a mile from the spot of a botched drug raid that cost Deputy Keith Ruiz his life. Hill was also on that raid. The same Travis County paramilitary unit would later erroneously raid a woman's home after mistaking ragweed for marijuana plants.
Sources: Clair Osborn, "Survivors sue Travis county over fatal raid," Austin American-Statesman, May 10, 2003, p. B1. / Claire Osborn, "Deputy not indicted in drug raid death," Austin American-Statesman, April 4, 2002.
Alberto Sepulveda
September 13, 2000—CA
Early in the morning on September 13, 2000, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, and the Stanislaus County, California drug enforcement agency conduct raids on 14 homes in and around Modesto, California after a 19-month investigation.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the DEA and FBI asked that local SWAT teams enter each home unannounced to secure the area ahead of federal agents, who would then come to serve the warrants and search for evidence. Federal agents warn the SWAT teams that the targets of the warrants, including Alberto Sepulveda's father Moises, should be considered armed and dangerous.
After police forcibly enter the Sepulveda home, Alberto, his father, his mother, his sister, and his brother are ordered to lie face down on the floor with arms outstretched. Half a minute after the raid begins, the shotgun officer David Hawn has trained on Alberto's head discharges, instantly killing the eleven-year-old boy.
No drugs or weapons are found in the home.
The Los Angeles Times later reports that when Modesto police asked federal investigators if there were any children present in the Sepulveda home, they replied, "not aware of any." There were three.
A subsequent internal investigation by the Modesto Police Department found that federal intelligence evidence against Moises Sepulveda -- who had no previous criminal record -- was "minimal." In 2002 he pled guilty to the last charge remaining against him as a result of the investigation -- using a telephone to distribute marijuana. The city of Modesto and the federal government later settled a lawsuit brought by the Sepulvedas for the death of their son for $3 million.
At first, Modesto Police Chief Roy Wasden seemed to be moved by Sepulveda's death toward genuine reform. "What are we gaining by serving these drug warrants?" Wasden is quoted as asking in the Modesto Bee. "We ought to be saying, 'It's not worth the risk. We're not going to put our officers and community at risk anymore.'"
Unfortunately, as part of the settlement with the Sepulvedas, while Modesto announced several reforms in the way its SWAT team would carry out drug raids, there was no mention of discontinuing the use of paramilitary units to conduct no-knock or knock-and-announce warrants on nonviolent drug offenders.
Sources: Rebecca Trounson, "Deaths raise questions about SWAT teams; Police: Accidents, deaths and raids at wrong addresses put pressure on departments to disband groups. Officers defend paramilitary units as effective when used properly," Los Angeles Times, November 1, 2000, p. A1. / Ty Phillips and Michael G. Mooney, "How did the gun go off? Police report fails to answer question in SWAT shooting of Alberto Sepulveda," Modesto Bee, January 11, 2001, p. A1. / Michael G. Mooney, "Boy's death costs Modesto $2.55M; Sepulveda family settles lawsuit filed against city after 11-year-old shot during SWAT drug raid," Modesto Bee, June 20, 2002, p. A1. / Rebecca Trounson, "Suit could put limit on use of SWAT teams; Police: Lawyer for family of Modesto boy killed in raid to ask federal court to end role of the paramilitary units in drug cases," Los Angeles Times, January 16, 2001, p. A3
*****
Even more angering is the reality that Police SWAT teams have conducted Para-military raids at schools, forcing children of all ages to lay face down, all the while being threatened by gun toting, guard dog wielding police officers. Officers that point loaded weapons into children’s faces, yelling obscenities at them, invariably traumatizing some of these students for life. Perhaps this is one example of why teens loath police officers, and later as adults, despise them.
In 2003, police in Goose Creek, South Carolina, conducted a school wide commando-style raid on Stratford High School. Police lined students face down on the floor at gunpoint while officers
searched their lockers and persons for drugs. Some were handcuffed. Police dogs sniffed
students, lockers, and backpacks. The incident made national news and was captured on
videotape by the school’s security cameras. It’s difficult to see why such tactics were necessary.
Police found no illegal drugs, and the school was described in media reports as having one
of the best academic reputations in the state.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxECm85k4eE&feature=related / Balko Whitepaper-p.18
Throughout its regretful history, SWAT Teams have been ruthlessly deployed against the civilian populace to not only serve warrants, but to act as a source of funding.
Of 146 no-knock raids conducted in Denver in 1999,
only 49 produced charges of any kind.
And of those, just 2 resulted
in prison time for the targets of the
raids.
In many of these cases, the home owner was awakened in the idle of the night by the sounds of somebody breaking into their home. It’s a natural instinct to reach for a weapon, especially if the home has been burglarized before, or the home is located in a high crime area.
While courts have been extremely deferential to police who fire on innocent civilians, they’ve been far less forgiving of citizens—even completely innocent citizens—who fire at police who have mistakenly
raided their homes.
There are documented examples where the home owner, thinking that he was been invaded by criminals, armed himself, and was immediately shot and killed by a fusillade of automatic weapons fire at the hands of SWAT officers. It wasn’t enough to simply shoot the victim, they poured a volley of bullets into innocent home owner.
A Miami SWAT team fired 122 rounds into the home of
73-year-old Richard Brown. Police found no drugs in Brown’s home.
Judges, Prosecutors, and the legal community alike, oftentimes praise the work of these jackbooted thugs that violate the sanctity of private property-giving little thought to the consequences of America’s 4th Amendment. Even when the evidence clearly illustrates that police officers acted recklessly, endangered lives, and without reasonable cause-illegally broke into a house, killing the home owner in the process-they turned a blind eye, allowing these para-military raids to go unchecked. Rarely have any of the police officers involved in these premeditated murders been charged or convicted for their crimes.
Scott Bryant. On April 17, 1995, police in Dodge County, Wisconsin, forcefully entered the mobile home of Scott Bryant after finding traces of marijuana in his garbage. The officers would later say they knocked and announced before entering, but neighbors who witnessed the raid say police entered without doing either. Moments later, Detective Robert Neuman shot an unarmed Bryant in the chest, killing him. Bryant’s eight-year old son was asleep in the next room. Neuman told investigators he “can’t remember” "pulling the trigger." Dodge County sheriff Stephen Fitzgerald compared the shooting to a hunting accident.
Every case cited above can be evidenced at { Radley Balko: Overkill: The Rise of Para-Military Raids in America [ http://www.cato.org/raidmap. }
This book is one of the most prolific publications in exposing the abuse and corruption of Police Departments and their administrators. Essentially, most police departments are utilizing SWAT Teams to supplement their own funding, under the pretext of Forfeiture and Seizure laws.
Admittedly; SWAT teams have their uses. They are in fact the first line of defense when it comes to potential terrorist attacks on the streets, and they certainly are a force to be reckoned with in hostage situations. But, the ever growing use of SWAT as a means to execute traffic warrants, minor drug infractions, and other misdemeanor offenses, is a judicial travesty that must be addressed.
Judges that issue “No-Knock” warrants without first determining the necessity of the raid itself, and by failing to conduct a thorough analysis of probable cause of the raid-should be held officially responsible and accountable.
Prosecutors that refuse to challenge the legality of such raids, or that conduct impromptu investigation that never fully disclose all the pertinent facts, should immediately be removed from their position.
SWAT teams, their commanders, and the Department that employs them, should be held accountable by a committee of non-police citizen whose job entails investigating every SWAT raid, determining if such raid was actually necessary, legal, and accomplished the result that it was supposed to.
If the raid resulted in the death of a civilian, the officers participating in the raid should be placed on administrative leave, every facet of the operation investigated and where applicable, officers responsible for homicide should be sent to prison for their actions. Dismissing these rouge officers is no longer an option, as the rest of society is expected to be punished by prison terms, sometimes the death sentence, so should Police officers that cross the line and murder its citizens.
Each SWAT raid should be videotaped by a non-departmental entity from the planning phase, through the actual execution of the operation. Evidence, intelligence data, and raid philosophy should be scrutinized under strict guidelines that preclude any violation of excessive force, intimidation, unlawful entry, and housebreaking.
In each case where a police officer points a gun at a minor child, handcuffs a child, or restrains a child by force of restrains, intimidation, or actions that could harm the child-that officer should be immediately charged with child neglect, child endangerment, and where applicable-be dismissed, and incarcerated like everyone else guilty of these crimes.
America cannot allow Police Departments, and local Prosecutor's offices to judge whether a raid was illegal, or a SWAT Team acted outside of its authority. Time after time, they have proven their own biases against the very people that they swore to “Protect and Serve”. The investigations must be carried out by civilian committees, watchdog groups, and the citizen themselves.
In a country that prides itself on freedom, these para-military raids are nothing short of a well orchestrated militarization of local Police Departments. A trend that has shown America that para-military raids are home invasions that have resulted in the unwarranted deaths and murder of innocent people. A grievous situation that cannot be allowed to exists
Police officers conducting these raids should be held accountable for their actions. No longer can the “Men In Blue´ run amok in the land of the free, acting like “the Men in Black” and not be held to the same exacting standards that citizens are.
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