Police have apologized for the mistaken raid I told you about last week, and have apparently started taking the first steps toward reimbursing the guy for the damage done to his home (which was extensive).

Here’s the troubling part:

Officers shot tear gas through the windows and broke down a back door. The house was empty, and there were no signs of drug activity.

Blackman, who was at work when the raid occurred, said that despite the apology, he is frustrated.

“They’re not communicating with me,” said Blackman, 46. “I still have a lot of things I need to get fixed.”

According to an affidavit for a search warrant, a patrol officer met with a “reliable confidential informant” who said drug activity was occurring in the house.

The informant has on numerous occasions given officers information that has proved correct, the affidavit says.

The informant “specifically pointed out” the location for the patrol officer and said he saw Taylor selling crack cocaine in the house on a recent visit, the affidavit states.

Officer J.T. Broadwater, identified in the affidavit as assigned to the FBI Violent Crime Task Force, wrote in the affidavit that “the location appeared exactly as the patrol officer and the informant described it.”

The affidavit lists Blackman’s address and describes it as a single-story house “with a gray composition roof, brown wood trim, white wood siding, a black burglary bar attached to the front door and black burglar bars attached to the front window.”

[...]

“Informants and tips — those come in from time to time,” Sullivan said. “But … we do have some obligation to corroborate information, and procedures weren’t followed; mistakes were made.”

An FBI spokeswoman did not return a phone message late Friday afternoon.

Sullivan said he wasn’t aware of any officers involved in the investigation being shifted to other duties.

Police are also investigating whether the informant “misidentified, misconstrued or misunderstood” the exact location he was trying to direct police to, Sullivan said.

“Some kind of miscommunication occurred,” he said.

Sullivan said the department takes exception to what he called suggestions by the media that the SWAT team may have acted inappropriately when it entered Blackman’s home. SWAT officers used appropriate tactics based on the information in the warrant that a potentially dangerous suspect was inside the house.

“SWAT did their job,” he said. “They did not make a mistake.”

Of course not. And if Blackman had been home at the time, he’d probably be dead.

No worries, though. I’m sure this was just an isolated incident. Police never raid based on a tip from a single informant with no corroborating investigation. Never.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 3rd, 2006 at 6:44 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Informants, Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.