Posted on 06/17/2011 8:24:23 PM PDT by george76
The lasting impact of the raid on Gary Adams' home became clear in a comment from his 3-year-old granddaughter during a recent trip to the pharmacy.
"She said, 'Granddad. Police. Hide,' " Adams, 57, of Bellevue recalled Wednesday while discussing the federal lawsuit he filed against the officers who burst into his home March 3.
Led by FBI Special Agent Karen Springmeyer, about a dozen officers used a battering ram to enter Adams' rented Orchard Street home in a search for Sondra Hunter, then 35. But Hunter hadn't lived at that address for almost two years, while Adams and his family had been living there for more than a year, according to the lawsuit filed by Adams and 10 other family members...
The lawsuit says that officers knew, or should have known, that Hunter no longer lived there. By executing an arrest warrant at a residence that wasn't Hunter's, they violated the family's Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure, and their Fifth Amendment right to due process, the lawsuit says.
...
Duquesne University law professor Bruce Ledewitz said arrest warrants don't give police carte blanche to enter any building because they think a suspect is inside. Instead, such warrants only authorize police to go to the person's residence.
Police usually enjoy "qualified immunity" from lawsuits even when they make mistakes, as long as they were carrying out their duties responsibly, he said. Entering a residence without probable cause, however, would strip the immunity away from those officers.
University of Pittsburgh law professor David Harris said the family faces several obstacles in winning. In particular, he thought it would be tough for them to overcome the officer's qualified immunity because the Supreme Court has repeatedly raised the bar for suing police officers.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
I guess they didn't want Sondra to dive head first into a toilet and flush herself down.
Since Hunter hadn't lived there in 2 years, this also seems like a criminal act with negligence to me. FBI had 2 years to "figure out" she didn't live there. Breaking and entering with damage.
If the attorney was competent, he/she named all plausible tortfeasors in the same lawsuit, not just the individual occifers. That would include the US gummit itself, which means the tax payers, or in this case the guy who turns the crank on the money printing machine. A jury verdict could easily go against the Feebs even if the judge hierarchy excuses individual occifers from liability.
Yes it is unbelievable. And now the U.S. Department of Education (ie. Re-education) now has a SWAT Team. Imagine the insanity, it could only be possible in our new Communist government.
I wonder how many of those destroyed doors are repaired by law enforcement? I was looking at estimates for replacing the door and the repair to the frame. The cost starts at $500 and go up to $1600, depending on the door. It would be like the police walking up to your car and whacking it with a sledge hammer. The problem with a house, is you need that door replaced very quickly.
You’d think people of almost any political persuasion would want to eliminate waste and duplication by having one “SWAT central” for a given government entity, e.g. all Federal agencies have to use “SWAT central” if they want SWAT. This is like being raped once and being told to pay for it a dozen times.
Shoot, you’ll likely get fined for a “public nuisance” if you don’t get it boarded up yourself pronto.
When the price of drugs goes up, people will take more risks to profit from it. When there are huge profits to make in the drug industry, people who are not usually attracted to it, will get into it. Such wealth can touch the entire fabric of society. The policy makers can make us think that by impacting the supply, they can protect society from drugs. Their action sows the seeds of corruption. Those same policy makers could also benefit from the climate of corruption they create. If I were in the drug industry, I would be encouraging the law makers to keep drugs as illegal as possible with nice campaign contributions. You don't want the price going down.
Maybe they need to train each other how to find the RIGHT address.
Yep. But it is total insanity for the U.S. Dept. of Education to have a SWAT team.. Totally Insane.
“A federal grand jury on Feb. 15 indicted 20 people on drug and gun charges. Sixteen are under arrest but police are still searching for the other four.”
Sondra Hunter was one of them.
A fact that could have been determined by any ten year old newspaper delivery kid in about twenty minutes. Or ask the mailman or call and pretend to be a telemarketer or fifty other cheap and easy ways to find out if your target actually lives there.
Interesting, the cops form a 12 man unit to bust in to get a person wanted for possession only.
Kind of sums up “Out of Control”
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No, that would be Waco.
Regards,
“which results in addicts mugging innocent people for money.”
Whether legal or not, they won’t be able to afford their habit and they will still mug people. This is a ridiculous precept for making drugs legal.
“..police SWAT teams..have fewer restrictions on conducting forced entry raids than do US forces in Afghanistan.”
50 yrs ago a clusterf**k like this would have been sufficient to cause the agents in charge to be stripped of authority and responsability. Welcome to the world of “Special Agent Karen Springmeyer”.
Mike
“conspiracy and heroin trafficking” according to the article.
Billy Ayers must be laughing again:
"Guilty as sin, free as a bird. What a country."
Female affirmative action hire overdoing things to prove how tough she is?
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