{"id":2892,"date":"2009-01-26T07:55:31","date_gmt":"2009-01-26T07:53:44","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-26T07:53:44","slug":"en-US","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=2892","title":{"rendered":"CA8: Trashing house during SWAT no-knock raid was not shown to be unreasonable"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defendant’s house was trashed during the no-knock raid by a SWAT team looking for drugs and weapons. It was not shown to be unreasonable under all the circumstances. Officers have discretion how to serve a search warrant. Cook v. Gibbons<\/a>, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 1095 (8th Cir. January 20, 2009) (unpublished):<\/p>\n

We conclude that the law-enforcement officers, armed with a valid no-knock search warrant, initially acted reasonably on their belief that Cook was armed and dangerous, given the events that transpired with the CI the night before and morning of the search, given Cook’s history of owning a lion and having significant numbers of firearms and storing some of them within the walls in trap doors, and given that they did not see him leave his residence. In other words, it was not “unnecessarily destructive” and was thus reasonable for the breach and entry teams to have introduced OC gas and flash grenades, apparently breaking two windows in the process, before ramming a side door and thereby damaging latches. See Hummel-Jones v. Strope, 25 F.3d 647, 650, 653 (8th Cir. 1994) (how best to proceed in performing search is generally left to discretion of officers executing warrant, but even valid warrants must be executed in reasonable manner); United States v. Baker, 16 F.3d 854, 855-56 (8th Cir. 1994) (officers’ use of distraction stun device, without knocking and announcing, was needed to effect safe entry and therefore reasonable where officers possessed information that front door was barricaded and that two Doberman Pinschers were inside); Ginter, 869 F.2d at 388-89 (starting fire to force suspect, reasonably believed to be armed and dangerous murderer, out of house was not unnecessarily destructive). Further, Cook did not refute defendants’ evidence that once the residence was breached, it took the entry team an additional thirty minutes to determine no one was present, and we conclude that an objectively reasonable officer, presented with the facts of this situation, could have thought it necessary to tear through the ceiling to access the attic, to use additional diversionary devices in the attic, and to make a hole in one wall to be sure that no persons or weapons were present.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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