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Overkill: the Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids

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Overkill: the Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids $10.00 O V E R K I L Studies from the L T H Cato’s publications offer a wide range of E detailed and authoritative studies of press- R I S ing public policy issues. Each study offers a E O sharply focused look behind and inside F P every topic covered. Together, these incisive A R studies form the heart of Cato’s important A M work. I L I T A Previous titles include R Y P I “Power Surge: The Constitutional Record O L I of George W. Bush” C E R I “Deployed in the U.S.A.: The Creeping A I D Militarization of the Home Front” S I N I “Treating Doctors As Drug Dealers: The A M DEA’s War on Prescription Painkillers” E R I C I “Back Door to Prohibition: The New War A on Social Drinking” R A D L E Ifyou are look- Most Americans You cannot Y think that they B ing for a scholar- read this book A “““ L ly examination receive ample without recog- K of why every protections nizing the social O businessperson against unwise tragedy that has needs to look or excessive resulted from for a lawyer criminal prosecu- the attempt to before seeking tion. But they prohibit people customers, this had better think from ingesting is it. again. an arbitrary list of substances “ “ designated ‘ille- — JUDGE —RICHARD A. EPSTEIN gal drugs.’ $17.95 cloth, 192 pp. ANDREW P. $12.95 paper, 119 pp. University of Chicago $18.95 cloth, $9.95 paper, 193 pp. NAPOLITANO Law School — MILTON “ Senior Judicial Analyst, FRIEDMAN Fox News Additional details and ordering information for Cato’s books and Policy Studies are available online at www.cato.org 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. • Washington, DC 20001 • www.cato.org View the interactive map that accompanies this paper at www.cato.org/raidmap Copyright © 2006 by the Cato Institute. All rights reserved. Cover design by Jon Meyers. Printed in the United States of America. CATO INSTITUTE 1000 Massachusetts Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001 www.cato.org Executive Summary Americans have long maintained that a man’s wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having home is his castle and that he has the right to their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usu- defend it from unlawful intruders. Unfortun- ally by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units ately, that right may be disappearing. Over the dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. last 25 years, America has seen a disturbing mili- These raids bring unnecessary violence and tarization of its civilian law enforcement, along provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many with a dramatic and unsettling rise in the use of of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The paramilitary police units (most commonly called raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly Special Weapons and Tactics, or SWAT) for rou- target the wrong residence. And they have result- tine police work. The most common use of SWAT ed in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not teams today is to serve narcotics warrants, usual- only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, ly with forced, unannounced entry into the children, bystanders, and innocent suspects. home. This paper presents a history and overview of These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per the issue of paramilitary drug raids, provides an year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting extensive catalogue of abuses and mistaken nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and raids, and offers recommendations for reform. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Radley Balko is a policy analyst for the Cato Institute specializing in civil liberties issues and is the author of the Cato study, “Back Door to Prohibition: The New War on Social Drinking.” Police say that Introduction let holes in his head, chest, torso, and limbs. Diotaiuto’s What happened between the time police “They [police officers] made a mistake. arrived at his home and the time Anthony concealed-carry There’s no one to blame for a mistake. The Diotaiuto’s body arrived at the coroner’s office permit indicated way these people were treated has to be is in dispute. Police say they announced them- he was potentially judged in the context of a war.” selves before breaking down Diotaiuto’s door, —Hallandale, Florida, attorney Richard Kane, consistent with the requirements of a “knock dangerous, which after police officers conducted a late night drug raid and announce” search warrant. Neighbors say necessitated the on the home of Edwin and Catherine Bernhardt. they heard no such announcement.4 The offi- Police broke into the couple’s home and threw cers who conducted the raid also say involvement of Catherine Bernhardt to the floor at gunpoint. Diotaiuto fled from the living room to the the SWAT team. Edwin Bernhardt, who had come down from his bedroom as the raid commenced, where he bedroom in the nude after hearing the commotion, armed himself with a handgun. An investiga- was also subdued and handcuffed at gunpoint. tive committee has yet to issue its final report, Police forced him to wear a pair of his wife’s under- but police accounts of the raid have continued wear, then took him to the police station, where he to change. Immediately after the raid, for spent several hours in jail. Police later discovered example, Lt. Robert Voss, spokesman for the they had raided the wrong address.1 Sunrise Police Department, told reporters that Diotaiuto “had a gun and pointed it at our On August 5, 2005, at 6:15 a.m., a SWAT officers.” Later the same day Voss revised, “In team converged around the Sunrise, Florida, all likelihood, that’s what happened. I know home of Anthony Diotaiuto. They came to there was a weapon found next to the body.”5 serve a search warrant based on an anony- Police also found a BB gun, a shotgun, the mous tip and an informant’s purchase of a handgun in question, and a rifle, all of which single ounce of marijuana from the 23-year- Diotaiuto owned legally. Diotaiuto also had old bartender and part-time student. a valid conceal-carry permit for the hand- Friends acknowledge that Diotaiuto was a gun.6 recreational marijuana smoker, but they There are nagging questions about the deny he was a drug dealer in any real sense of account of the Diotaiuto raid given by the term.2 They would later tell the media Sunrise police. For example, police say that that Diotaiuto had just bought the modest Diotaiuto’s concealed-carry permit indicated home with his mother after taking a second he was potentially dangerous, which necessi- job and selling off his prized sports car—good tated the involvement of the SWAT team and evidence, they say, that he wasn’t running any the early-morning raid.7 But common sense lucrative criminal enterprise. Also a part-time suggests the opposite. Applicants for con- student in community college, Diotaiuto was cealed-carry permits in Florida are required described by the parents of one of his friends to fill out a variety of paperwork, undergo a as “a gem,” by a neighbor as a “beautiful per- criminal background check and fingerprint- son,” and by others as a churchgoing, family- ing, pay a fee, and enroll in a class on gun oriented man.3 He had one previous convic- safety and firearms law.8 If Diotaiuto were a tion for possession of marijuana, when he hardened, professional drug dealer danger- was 16. Otherwise, Diotaiuto had no crimi- ous enough to merit the use of such over- nal record, and no history of violence or crim- whelming force, it seems unlikely that he’d inal conduct. go to the trouble of obtaining a permit for his By 7 a.m. the raid was over. Police had bro- guns. Diotaiuto’s permit should have indi- ken down Diotaiuto’s front door, and turned cated to Sunrise police that, if anything, his home upside down looking for drugs, Diotaiuto was more likely a nonviolent, occa- weapons, and drug paraphernalia. Diotaiuto sional drug user, rather than a volatile lay dead in a bedroom closet. He had 10 bul- offender necessitating use of a SWAT team. 2 If, indeed, police had given sufficient Kauai, Hawaii, broke into the home of Sharon notice of their presence, as mandated by a and William McCulley, at home at the time “knock and announce” warrant, it’s difficult with their grandchildren. Police were tracking a to understand why Diotaiuto’s immediate box that allegedly contained marijuana, and reaction would be to flee to his bedroom to believed it to be in the McCulleys’ possession. arm himself, given the small amount of mar- After breaking down the elderly McCulleys’ ijuana in his possession. It’s even more diffi- door, police threw the couple to the ground. cult to imagine him then knowingly pointing They handcuffed Sharon McCulley and held his weapon at police for such an insignificant her to the floor with a gun to her head—her amount of the drug. An ounce of marijuana grandchild lying next to her. William McCulley hardly merits a lethal shootout. If Diotaiuto —who uses a walker and has an implanted was indeed armed when police entered his device that delivers electrical shocks to his spine home, it seems more likely that his neigh- to relieve pain—began flopping around the bors’ account is correct: The police didn’t floor when the device malfunctioned from the give sufficient notice of their presence and trauma of being violently thrown to the identity. Unaware that the armed men break- ground.11 ing down his door were law enforcement, Police had the wrong address.
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