Posted on 06/09/2006 7:38:19 AM PDT by VRing
A Stockbridge couple whose home was mistakenly raided by Henry County Police last year as they sought a drug suspect is seeking $8 million in damages from the incident.
In a lawsuit filed last month in Superior Court against county officials and police, Roy and Belinda Baker say they were roused out of bed by police who used a battering ram to knock down their door and threw concussive grenades into their home around 1 a.m. Sept. 30.
“The Law Enforcement Defendants accosted the Bakers in the hallway to their bedroom, where they had been sleeping, and yelled at the Bakers, threatened, assaulted and unlawfully touched the Bakers, and placed the Bakers face down, at gunpoint ...” the suit says.
(Excerpt) Read more at henryherald.com ...
This whole lawsuit thing has become "life's lottery", as portrayed by Dick Gephardt....no resemblance between damages and the amount sought when an ambulance-chaser takes it and seeks to do his own wealth-redistribution from the deep pockets into his OWN pockets.
Yeah, sorta like explaining that in the middle of the night you didn't see the stop sign, speed limit sign, one-way street sign, etc. Officers are always sympathetic to those kind of excuses so let's give them a break.
The WOD. Gotta love it.
Georgia has been added as a topic for the cityslickers who don't know their geography. ;-)
I'd bet money that they never see a dime.
pets AND people have been killed in these "accidents" and I've never heard of restitution.
Why are they only suing for 8 million dollars? I think $75 million is fair. A couple judgements like that, and you'll see the failed war on some drugs scaled back pretty quickly.
If someone bashed in my front door they'd get a full mag of .40s and I'd probably wind up dead, too. $8 million really doesn't cover it.
I hope they win too. No knock raids are way over used and the police seem to screw up frequently. Someone could easily have been shot so its not about the door or the ottoman. Its about our right to be secure in our home.
The police have escalated the violence at the same time the druggies did. Sometimes its necessary but its frequently not.
SWAT teams are cool and the guys on them get to play with special weapons and do all kinds of cool stuff. The police departments used these images to recruit and got the type of person you'd expect, someone who wants to bust someone else up. And of course these things are expensive so you have to use them to keep the funding coming.
"This whole lawsuit thing has become "life's lottery", "
Unfortunately our city leaders will rarely do something because its the right thing to do anymore. They will only do it if forced through financial means.
The police are lucky several of them didn't get shot. 8 million is an easy let off, considering. It would've been justifiable self-defense, but the homeowners would've been thrown under the prison anyway. Such is the state of our justice system.
Also the Judge who signed the warrant should bear some of the responsibility. I would like to see a note stating what he did, placed on the ballot, every time the Judge runs for any public office.
Too bad it will be the taxpayers forking over, and not the jackasses who authorized and committed this act of burglary and assault with deadly weapons.
"anytime you are either not man enough, or too ashamed of what you are doing to show your face - them it probably isn't the thing to do."
This bears repeating.
Another fricking "mistake". Yes, they should get at least $8 million for it. This no knock crap has to stop somewhere.
The problem is that LEOs are not personally responsible or liable for any of these "mistakes".
A bunch of cops on a head trip.
"but $8,000,000 is way out of the line of reasoning and should be tossed."
The jury will decide how much they should get. A lawyer is always going to go overboard on the amount.
"In the middle of the night there is a reasonable explanation as to the mix up of addresses involved, and that is most likely what happened."
Whatever, the police made a mistake that should never have happened. If they can't get the addresses straight they shouldn't be cops.
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