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Note to Sensenbrenner: Check Wisconsin’s Troubling History of Police Raids

Sunday, May 28th, 2006

As Rep. James Sensenbrenner prepares for the hearings he’s hosting Tuesday on the “outrageous” raid on the office of a congressman by FBI agents wearing suits, we get more details on the botched SWAT raid that took place last week in his home state, in which two innocent people were terrorized by a police team using urban warfare tactics. From the Wisconsin State Journal, via Lexis (no link — article is already off-line):

Profuse apologies and promises of restitution, repair and investigation were made by officials Wednesday in the wake of a botched drug raid at a Dodgeville apartment building.

A six-agency illegal drug task force on Monday initially broke into the wrong apartment and handcuffed an innocent couple as they were preparing to retire for the night. After officers realized their error, they eventually took four people into custody at the adjacent apartment.

The two people who were released resided at 512 Montgomery St., Apt. 4. The intended raid target was Apt. 3, said Lt. Scott Marquardt, director of the Richland-Iowa-Grant Drug Task Force and a member of the Platteville Police Department.

Marquardt said he is investigating how the tactical unit mixed up the apartments and broke the big front window and ignited a “flash bang” device outside the window, then entered through the apartment door and handcuffed the couple. Marquardt said he didn’t know if the door was smashed in.

“They were obviously disturbed about it, and we are disturbed that they are disturbed,” said Marquardt.

Oddly enough, the police then went back to the correct apartment. There, they broke no windows, deployed no grenades, and arrested the suspects without incident. Which raises the question: If the suspects were dangerous enough to merit a no-knock and violent “dynamic entry” tactics, why didn’t police use those tactics when they went back?

At the second apartment, they seized “61 grams” of marijuana and mushrooms, and arrested four college-aged students. Note that when police seize small amounts of drugs, they measure the catch in grams. “61 grams” certainly sounds more menacing and worthy of a SWAT raid than “a little more than two ounces,” doesn’t it?

This is far from the first botched SWAT raid in Rep. Sensenbrenner’s home state of Wisconsin:

  • In December of last year, a SWAT team in Pewaukee mistakenly raided the home of H. Victor Beurosse, a retired lawyer. When they raided the correct home, his neighbor, they found enough marijuana for nor more than a misdemeanor possession charge.
  • In February 2001, a SWAT team in Muskego descended on the home of Susan Wilson and forced her face-first into the pavement of her driveway at gunpoint while they searched her home. They had the wrong address. Three years earlier, the same SWAT team received public criticism for apprehending a suspect with a full-on raid of a shopping mall Houlihan’s during the busy lunch hour.
  • In 2000, a SWAT team launched a wrong-door no-knock raid on Wendy and Jesus Olveda, throwing the young couple to the floor at gunpoint and putting boots to their heads as their terrified three-year-old daughter looked on. The cops had the wrong address.
  • In 1998, a SWAT team stormed an apartment in Milwaukee, deployed flashbang grenades, and handcuffed the residents at gunpoint — save for the two-year-old girl inside, whom they allowed to simply look on in horror. They too had the wrong address.
  • In the mid 1990s, there were so many botched SWAT raids by a multi-jurisdictional drug task force serving several towns in Central Wisconsin that the private company that insured the towns threatened to withdraw its coverage unless the task force dramatically scaled back its tactics.
  • In 1995, police in Dodge County, Wisconsin raided the home of Scott Bryant after finding traces of mariuana in the man’s trash. Deputies forced entry into the home (they say they announced themselves — neighbors say they heard no such announcement) where Bryant met them with a gun. They shot and killed Bryant in front of his eight-year-old son. Bryant’s family later won a $950,000 settlement. The same police department was later sued for conducting a botched raid on another home, keeping four occupants handcuffed at gunpoint for more than four hours while they searched for drugs. They found nothing.

    SWAT fervor in Wisconsin has gotten so out of hand, in fact, that in 2001, the Madison Capital Times ran an extensive multi-part front-page investigation of the proliferation of SWAT teams across the state, and the disturbing number of times the teams broke down the doors of innocent people. The investigation traced the explosion in SWAT activity to the Pentagon’s giveaway of surplus military equipment to local police departments, and to federal grants to local police departments for drug enforcement.

    I guess we’ll have to wait until SWAT team wrongly targets a congressman’s home to get those hearings.

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    This entry was posted on Sunday, May 28th, 2006 at 9:09 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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