Who Pays For SWAT Team's Mistakes?
By K. W. Locke
What do a SWAT team and an escaped lion have in common? Both roar in and cause damage, but don't have to pay for what they break.
You've already read here how a SWAT team in McKinney, Texas, caused $50,000 damage to a house and left the innocent owner with the bill. We've also reported about the SWAT team in rural South Dakota that tore up a house trailer even though officers knew witnesses had reported that the fugitive was elsewhere.
Here are more examples of what can happen when you give people guns and battering rams and no–knock warrants and also give them immunity from lawsuit. Earlier this month, a federal appellate court issued another decision illustrating just how difficult it is to hold the police liable for damage they cause.
The court considered a 2018 incident when a SWAT team in Henry County, Georgia, seeking a drug dealer, battered in the door of the wrong house, exploded a flash-bang grenade and arrested a 78–year–old who had just been sitting there watching television. Later, the cops learned they'd made a mistake.
The warrant had listed the correct address for the drug dealer and the cops had gone to that address first. They found that building to be in bad shape and, apparently, unoccupied. So, the SWAT team captain figured that the correct building must be this other one nearby.
He might not have made that mistake if he had read the warrant carefully because it included a description of the drug dealer's house. But the SWAT captain didn't bother.
Narcotics detectives had wanted the drug dealer arrested but considered him too armed and dangerous for them to handle alone. So, they asked the SWAT team to provide the muscle. The SWAT team captain relied on the detectives to point out the right building to raid.
When the court found that the captain had immunity, it stressed that the raid was dangerous because criminal friends of the drug dealer lived nearby. The court also described how carefully the officers had planned the raid. Therefore, the judges reasoned, this case was different from an earlier one where the court had denied immunity to a clearly negligent officer.
Courts, wielding the doctrine of qualified immunity, make it very difficult, if not almost impossible, for someone to hold the police liable for their own negligence.
The law holds a private party using something inherently dangerous - whether it be dynamite or a lion - to be strictly liable for any harm caused. But a city or a county can equip a SWAT team with weapons and explosives and set it loose, and not have to pay a cent for any resulting damage! That needs to change.
In Flint, Michigan, a SWAT team with a no–knock warrant battered down the door of the wrong home and held a family at gunpoint. A lawyer representing 28–year–old Michelle Colson and 56–year–old Renee Dunigan has now written Attorney General Merrick Garland asking for a federal investigation.
The lawyer's letter said that the Michigan State Police SWAT team "rousted the family at gunpoint, literally from shower, sleep, and bed, and forced them to sit together for one hour – in Michelle's case unclothed, having just stepped out of the shower – while approximately 50 officers tore the house apart."
An informant had given the State Police misleading information. The suspect lived in the house next to the one the SWAT team raided. The letter requesting a federal investigation claimed that the police did not do anything to verify the information before they conducted the raid.
This would be a good time for Attorney General Garland to act. The federal government has just announced it will investigate domestic terrorism. Few things can cause more terror than a SWAT team running amok.
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Two of the cops involved - shown above in an image taken the day of the incident by a police department surveillance camera - have resigned. Both Austin Hopp (at left) and Daria Jalali (right) now face criminal charges.
Larimer County District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin charged Hopp with second degree assault, that is, with assault causing serious bodily injury, which is a felony.
The DA also has charged Hopp with "attempt to influence a public servant," which is also a felony. The DA alleges that Hopp filed a misleading police report concerning the incident.
The other former officer, Jalali, faces charges under a relatively new, and pioneering, Colorado law requiring a police officer to intervene, rather than just stand there and do nothing, when another officer is hurting someone in custody. The DA charged Jalali with such a failure to intervene as well as with a failure to report the use of force. Both are misdemeanors.
Additionally, both former officers face charges of official misconduct, arising out of the same incident.
Banner based on image from bodycam worn by member of the Henry County (Georgia) Sheriff's Department Special Response Team; Georgia map from Wikipedia. Photograph of Michigan State Police sign from MSP website. "Update" banner, showing Officers Hopp and Jalali "fist-bumping," based on image from surveillance camera in Loveland (Colorado) Police Department. Bodycam image of arrest from Loveland Police Department. Mugshots from Larimer County (Colorado) Sheriff's Office.
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