Pubdate: Wed, 29 Nov 2006
Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Copyright: 2006 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Contact: http://www.csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/contactus.pl
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/83
Author: Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Referenced: The Cato Institute report 'Overkill: The Rise of 
Paramilitary Police Raids in America' a 103 page .pdf file 
http://www.cato.org/pubs/wtpapers/balko_whitepaper_2006.pdf
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Kathryn+Johnston
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?246 (Policing - United States)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/author/Radley+Balko

AFTER ATLANTA RAID TRAGEDY, NEW SCRUTINY OF POLICE TACTICS

Police Are Reviewing Their Use of 'No-Knock' Warrants After an 
Octogenarian Was Killed After Officers Burst into Her Home.

Kathryn Johnston, neighbors say, was scared.

Drug activity had moved down from the seedy "Bluff" neighborhood in 
northwest Atlanta onto her street. In the past year, she put up 
burglar bars and installed extra locks. At some point, she had gotten 
herself a gun.

But in a case that is raising increasing questions about police 
conduct and the use of "no-knock" warrants, the octogenarian Ms. 
Johnston ended up using the gun on police, rather than hood-wearing 
thugs. Last Tuesday, a team of police, who were conducting a 
"no-knock raid" in search of a drug dealer, burst into her home. 
Johnston opened fire. Three officers were wounded. Johnston was killed.

Raids in which heavily armed police enter suspected drug dens in an 
overwhelming rush have become a regular occurrence as embattled 
officers try to clear neighborhoods of drugs and violent crime.

But around the US, a growing list of botched raids has prompted 
critics to call for a rollback. And Atlanta is now added to the list 
of a small but growing number of cities who are scrutinizing such practices.

"The question that society has to answer is: How much risk are we 
willing to take in order to get violent drug dealers, knowing we're 
going to make mistakes and shoot innocent people?" says David Moran, 
associate dean of the Wayne State University Law School in Detroit.

The number of no-knock raids has increased from 3,000 in 1981 to more 
than 50,000 last year, according to Peter Kraska, a criminologist at 
Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond.

Botched raids are relatively rare, but since the early 1980s, 40 
bystanders have been killed, according to the Cato Institute, a 
libertarian think tank in Washington.

As the FBI and US Attorney's office launched an investigation Monday 
night into Johnston's death, it's becoming clear that such raids are 
fraught with complexity. Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington says 
the raid was based on an anonymous informant known only as "Sam," who 
has since denied ever buying drugs in the house and alleges that he 
was asked to lie by police. This week, Chief Pennington announced 
that his department will review its policy regarding no-knock 
warrants. He has placed the city's entire eight-man narcotics team on 
administrative leave.

"We are reviewing all of our procedures, how we obtain warrants and 
how we apply them," he says. "I promise that the complete truth 
[about the raid] will eventually be known."

Most experts don't believe that a national reform movement is 
imminent, but in cities like Atlanta where innocent people have died, 
local debates often lead to departmental reform, including, in some 
places, civilian oversight of SWAT teams. Modesto, Calif.; New Haven, 
Conn.; and Denver are among a growing number of cities that have cut 
back on the use of no-knock raids. After the death of an elderly 
woman in a botched raid in 2003, New York City promised deep reforms, 
as well, though critics say an oversight board has cited 15 cases of 
"wrong-door" raids this year.

As in Johnston's case, raids can be dangerous for police as well. In 
September, a Mississippi man, Cory Maye, was taken off death row 
after an appeals judge found inconsistencies in his case. He was 
convicted of killing the son of a police chief in a late-night 
no-knock raid on a warrant naming another man who lived in the other 
half of a duplex. Mr. Maye and his daughter were sleeping in the room 
when police burst in, and he opened fire on what he says he thought 
were intruders.

Today, about 80 percent of SWAT team deployments are for "proactive 
drug enforcement," according to the Cato Institute.

"The problem is that there's such a small margin of error - you're 
creating a violent situation, not defusing it," says Radley Balko, a 
senior editor with Reason magazine who has written extensively about 
no-knock raids.

But it's also clear that a police presence is needed in the gangland 
avenues of places like Atlanta's "The Bluff," a historically rough 
area a block from Johnston's house.

"A lot of drug-dealing goes on in the African-American community, and 
most African- Americans would like to see the drug dealers moved," 
says David Bayley, a criminologist at the University at Albany in New 
York. "As anybody would, they're against unjustified shootings, but 
they're not all that opposed to police working in a hard-edged way 
against people who are destroying their security."

Nevertheless, in Atlanta, Johnston's death has hurt relations between 
the police and a community sorely in need of their services, locals say.

"It's not just a tragedy, it's a great tragedy," says Gene Nelson, 
one of Johnston's neighbors.

The legal precept for knocking before entering goes back to the 
Middle Ages. But US courts have allowed no-knock raids, with some 
limits. In June, the Supreme Court upheld a previous no-knock 
decision that said police should wait at least 15 seconds for an 
occupant to answer before bursting through the door. (A longer wait 
might give a drug dealer time to flush evidence down the toilet.) But 
in the same decision, the court decided by a 5-to-4 vote to allow 
evidence gained in raids that used less time than that.

The upshot, says Mr. Moran, who argued that case for the plaintiff in 
front of the Supreme Court, is that "we'll see a lot more of these 
[no-knock] raids in the future." 
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