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Justices To Say Whether Feds Must Pay For SWAT Raid At Wrong House

Crime and Justice News

In 2017, an FBI SWAT team smashed in the front door of an Atlanta family’s home in the pre-dawn hours, detonated a flashbang grenade and pointed guns at the adults before realizing they had raided the wrong house. The agent in charge blamed his GPS device for sending the team to a house 436 feet from the home of the violent gang member they were trying to arrest. The family sued for compensation for the trauma they experienced, but an appeals court ruled they couldn’t go after the government. The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review that decision., reports USA Today. Lawyers for the family said the fundamental issue is whether Congress created a way for people to seek redress for a wrong-house raid or other negligent or wrongful acts by federal law enforcement. They argue that’s what lawmakers did in 1974 in response to two raids on the wrong homes. Congress amended the Federal Tort Claims Act to specify that claims can be made against the government in various situations including false arrest and abuse of process. “Whatever else the provision encompasses, there is no question that wrong-house raids lie at its core,” a bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote in a brief supporting the family’s appeal.


The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Federal Tort Claims Act doesn’t apply if the disputed action by the law enforcement officer involved an element of judgment, even if the officer abused his discretion. The court said that the supremacy clause − the section of the Constitution that makes the federal government “the supreme Law of the Land” – blocks the suit because the mistakes made were reasonable in the “rapidly-changing and dangerous situation of executing a high-risk warrant at night.” When the SWAT team entered the wrong home, residents Curtrina Martin and Hilliard Toi Cliatt thought they were being burglarized and hid in a bedroom closet where Cliatt kept a shotgun for protection. The SWAT team dragged Cliatt out of the closet and handcuffed him. Martin said she pleaded with the officers to let her go to her seven-year-old son who was hiding under his bed covers in another room. When the team realized they had the wrong address, they released Cliatt and left. After arresting the target, the lead agent returned to apologize to Martin and Cliatt, documented the property damage and provided his supervisor’s contact information. Both homes were split-levels on corner lots and had stoops leading to the front door with windows on either side, large trees in the yard and side-entry garages on separate streets. The family said the FBI refused to cover costs from the trauma they inflicted, including lost wages and “years of therapy necessary to come to terms with the raid.”


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