Law enforcement may finally have to pay penalties for mistaken raids

OPINION:

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in late April on a case that could finally put to rest the flawed idea that law enforcement officers are largely exempt from lawsuits demanding accountability and payment for raids on the wrong homes. Finally. Equal justice under the law for all: That’s the American way.

This case should be a no-brainer — but instead, the matter has been turned into a political beast.

Conservatives don’t ever want to say anything negative about police for fear of appearing like a Black Lives Matter sympathizer. Liberals don’t ever want to say anything positive about police for fear of appearing like a MAGA-type deplorable. The stereotypes serve as walls to reason and rational discussion.

And thus, families like the one in Atlanta — Trina Martin, her son Gabe and her partner Toi Cliatt — whose home was mistakenly stormed by an FBI SWAT team in the wee hours of a morning in 2017 are left in the lurch, left to the side, left to deal with the devastation of a system that’s long wronged innocents.

Here’s the background, from the Institute of Justice: “Before the sun came up one morning, [the three family members] were startled awake in their homes by the sound of a flashing grenade exploding. Trina’s instinct was to run to her 7-year-old’s bedroom, but Toi, fearing for her life, grabbed her and pulled her to their walk-in closet. As Toi was reaching for a shotgun to protect his home, an FBI agent opened the door and snatched Toi. Toi was handcuffed and thrown onto the floor. Agents angrily shouted questions at Toi, but when he told them his address, the room went silent.”

That’s because SWAT members realized — oops, oopsie, oopsie daisy — they were in the wrong house. 

They left. They found the correct house. They raided that house. Then they sent an agent back to the family’s home they had wrongly terrorized and left a business card for their SWAT supervisor.

Sorry. Not sorry.

“[T]he FBI provided no help to Trina, Gabe and Toi as they struggled to live, work and go to school with the trauma of the raid hanging over them,” IJ.org wrote.

So they sued.

They filed a Federal Tort Claims Act, FTCA, lawsuit against the government.

But years and years and years of wrongful court rulings on the FTCA — which was passed 80 years ago as a means of protecting citizens who were harmed by the actions of federal workers — resulted in a ruling that went against the family.

“Because the court inexplicably concluded that FBI agents have the ‘discretionary authority’ to raid the wrong house,” IJ.org wrote, “sovereign immunity barred the claims. According to the court, Trina, Gabe and Toi had no remedy for the raid because the almost-deadly mistakes that led the FBI to kick in an innocent family’s door were arguably characterized as a ‘policy decision.’”

Policy decision?

Institute for Justice then appealed on the family’s behalf, and now the case is due for oral arguments before the Supreme Court on April 29.

Thankfully, this seems to be the case on government immunity that is finally bridging the political divide. Among the family’s supporters who want the Supreme Court to clarify the FTCA and return it to its clean language state — so as to put a stop to the application of improperly ruled precedents — are Sens. Rand Paul, a Republican, and Ron Wyden, a Democrat; Cynthia Lummis, a Republican, and Raphael Warnock, a Democrat.

Public Accountability has filed a brief in support of the family’s claims. So, too, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, the National Police Accountability Project and the Rutherford Institute. Other organizations of various political leanings have weighed in as well, all requesting the high court to — as the Institute for Justice put it — “make things right.”

Yes. It’s simple.

When police do wrong, they must make every effort to right that wrong.

When law enforcement officials barge into the wrong home in raids-run-awry, they should pay for the damages — yes, even if it involves tax dollars, they should pay for the damages; they should apologize for the damages; they should do whatever it takes to address the complaints and concerns of the damaged parties.

They shouldn’t just drop a business card and run.

It’s important for police to have the full support of the citizens they serve and defend. Being pro-police is important. But it’s not as important as being pro-American. And in America, our system of justice is supposedly blind.

That means no government worker should ever be exempt from the rules of accountability that are thrust onto private citizens.

Law enforcement is not entitled to its own special system of justice.

• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.