Posted on 12/18/2014 11:03:27 PM PST by Slings and Arrows
Alecia and Bounkham Phonesavanh never imagined their family would be at the center of a controversy over the militarization of police. But that’s exactly where they found themselves when their toddler was seriously injured by a SWAT team, also leaving them with a $1 million medical bill they have no hope of paying.
“They messed up,” Alecia Phonesavanh told ABC News' "20/20." “They had a faulty search warrant. They raided the wrong house.”
In the spring of 2014, the Phonesavanh’s home in Janesville, Wisconsin, was destroyed by fire. Homeless with four young children, they packed one of their last remaining possessions – their minivan – and drove 850 miles to the home of Bounkham’s sister in Cornelia, Georgia.
The family crowded into a former garage converted into a bedroom: parents Bounkham and Alecia, 7-year-old Emma, 5-year-old Mali, 3-year-old Charlie and 18-month-old Bounkham Jr., known as “Bou Bou.” It was a tight squeeze but only temporary. After two months the family had found a new house in Wisconsin and was planning to return home.
At approximately 2 a.m. May 28, the family awakened to a blinding flash and loud explosion in their bedroom. A Special Response Team (aka SWAT team) from the Habersham County Sheriff's Office burst unannounced into the bedroom where they were sleeping. According to police reports, Habersham Deputy Charles Long threw a “flash-bang” grenade – a diversionary device used by police and military – into the room. It landed in Bou Bou’s pack-and-play.
“Bou Bou started screaming,” recalls Alecia Phonesavanh. “I immediately went to grab him.”
But Alecia says Habersham Deputy Jason Stribling picked up the child before she could reach him. “I kept telling him, ‘Just give me my son. He's scared. He needs me. The officer wouldn't. And then he walked out of the room...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Current status of the flashbang-in-the-baby’s-crib atrocity.
What a bloody disaster for this family. Unimaginable damage to their beloved little boy. They are not responsible, if this article speaks the truth; the police are.
The police are. No doubt there.
Thank goodness Obamacare is the law of the land. Thefamily won’t have to pay anything, right?
The suspect wasn’t even at the location during the military style raid...
“Injured” is an understatement. A young child had his face blown off by a flash-bang grenade. When I first heard this story it haunted me.
I am speechless! These people need a lawyer who looks and operates like a Pit Bull! The very idea that the county would deny fault here is unfathomable. It may take awhile, but these people will get lots of Habersham County’s money in the end and deservedly so.
If tho happened to me, it would be a hard temptation to not kill some officers.
If you are referring to Cornelia Police Department raid you are miscasting what transpired there and it is not at all obvious that the police are responsible
The house that was “raided” was a meth house that an informant had told the police was being guarded by armed men.
The babies crib was allegedly being used by the occupants to block and jam a door in the house to prevent drug and money motivated home invaders from breaking in to steal their stash and cash.
Note, the babies family had moved into this house after they allegedly burned their own house down cooking meth.
Here is the CNN report on the obviously tragic event-
“The SWAT team, made up of six or seven officers from the sheriff's department and the Cornelia Police Department, entered the Cornelia residence Wednesday before 3 a.m.
A confidential informant hours earlier had purchased methamphetamine at the house, the sheriff says. The informant told police that there were men standing guard outside the home, and it was unclear whether they were armed, according to CNN affiliate WGCL.
Because the suspected drug dealer, Wanis Thonetheva, had a previous weapons charge, officers were issued a “no-knock warrant” for the residence, Terrell said.
Wanis Thonetheva is being held without bond.
When the SWAT team hit the home's front door with a battering ram, it resisted as if something was up against it, the sheriff said, so one of the officers threw the flash-bang grenade inside the residence.
Once inside the house, the SWAT team realized it was a portable playpen blocking the door, and the flash-bang grenade had landed inside where the 19-month-old was sleeping, the sheriff said.
A medic on the scene rushed the baby outside to administer first aid, and a nearby ambulance was summoned. Authorities wanted to transport the baby via Life Flight to Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital, 75 miles southwest of Cornelia, but weather conditions wouldn't allow it. The baby was driven to the hospital.
Mother: ‘He didn't deserve any of this’
A Grady official said it's hospital policy not to disclose patients’ conditions, but the child's mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, told CNN affiliate WSB that doctors had put her son into an induced coma.
She further told the station the family was sleeping at her sister-in-law’s house when police arrived, and the grenade seared a hole through the portable playpen after exploding on the child's pillow.
“He didn't deserve any of this,” Phonesavanh told WSB. “He's in the burn unit. We go up to see him and his whole face is ripped open. He has a big cut on his chest.”
Thonetheva, 30, was not at the home at the time of the raid, but the toddler's mother and father and their other three children were inside. Thonetheva's mother was also at the house, Terrell said.
The baby's family had moved into the Cornelia residence after their Wisconsin home burned, Terrell told CNN affiliate WXIA, and while the family members were aware of drug activity in the home, “they kept the children out of sight in a different room while any of these going-ons were happening.”
Thonetheva was arrested at another Cornelia residence, along with three other people, shortly after the raid, Terrell said. He is charged with distribution of methamphetamine. Habersham County Chief Assistant District Attorney J. Edward Staples said Thonetheva could also be charged in connection with the baby's injuries.
Thonetheva was already out on bond for an October 2013 charge of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony — the felony being distribution of methamphetamine, Staples said.”
So the facts are a little different than the story circulating and while the use of the flash bang was questionable I'm not sure it documents the case police officers out of control.
The police could still have used other methods to do what needed done. They are using tactics that are more suitable for raids on fortified compounds and using them on suburban dwellings. For the amount of drugs that are often confiscated in these flash bang raids, it’s overkill.
In this case, it would seem, the miserable People of Habersham County ought to be on the hook for all expenses! Let them take it out of the relevant pension fund!
A drug task force?? Why do we need drug task forces?
Deputy Long should be up for attempted murder. No Darren Wilson he!
So, a meth family uses the crib like Hamas uses civilians. Don’t blame the cops, blame the criminals.
Of course they don't have to pay "anything!" They have to pay one million dollars.
From your keyboard to G-d’s ears.
Not likely. They were probably using the crib as they said they did, because they were cramped for room.
I’m not saying they were innocent, but they were hardly a hardcore mafia family.
A confidential informant is a criminal who seels information to the cops to keep his ass out of jail. They are - shall we say - less than reliable? Also, I’m see a lot of “alleged,” but precious little hard evidence.
That story reads like a lying cop trying to cover himself after he screwed up big-time. I wonder why?
You would have every right to kill them all where they stand.
I wouldn’t be doing it in response to a raid, but more Charles Bronson type of vengeance.
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