The bunkering down begins. From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

The basis for the search warrant was not known because State Court Administrator Stefani Searcy refused to release a copy of the warrant Wednesday. State law considers all such documents public record but Searcy cited “office policy” as her reason for withholding the warrant.

I find this rather disconcerting. A woman is dead. Three cops were shot. There are serious questions about how and why the warrant was issued. And despite the fact that the warrant is already public information, we still don’t get to see it? Exactly whom do the police, the DA, and the courts serve?

We also learn from the article that olice do not suspect that Johnston herself was involved in the drug trade. Which means that, yes, in all likelihood, a completely innocent woman was killed because police insisted on using paramilitary tactics. If that’s the case, I don’t care what’s on that warrant. Unless it says the suspect presented an immediate threat to others — that is, he was holding someone hostage, or some similar scenario — dynamic entry into a home where a 92-year-old woman resides is bad procedure.

Which brings up another question: Did the police even know that the targeted house was inhabited by a 92-year old woman? If not, why not?

There was a carpeted wheelchair ramp in front of the home. The woman had lived at the house for 17 years. She obviously paid bills. Her neighbors knew he she was. If they didn’t know that the house where these alleged drug buys took place was inhabited by a frail, elderly woman, they damn-well should have.

Given that assistant chief Dreher says in the article that police know very little about Johnston, it’s looking as if they did little if anything in the way of investigating the home and its occupants.

We lalso earn more about Johnston from neighbors:

Neighbors Keith Coachman, Reginald McAfee and Thomas Benjamin milled around outside Johnston’s house Wednesday recalling her as a nice old woman who was cautious.

Coachman, who did yard work for Johnston, said she always urged him to get his work done early.

“She was scared, she would go to bed around 5 or 6 and she wouldn’t open her door for anybody,” he said. “When she is in, she is in.”

Neighbors said Johnston didn’t even take her trash to the street. Sanitation workers came to her side door to get it.

Sallie Strickland, who has lived on the street for 51 years, agreed the old woman lived in fear. “I’d bring groceries and she’d say, ‘Set them on the porch,’ ” said Strickland. “Then she’d lock the doors right away.”

The only people she ever saw in the house were her niece and some nephews

All of which makes me wonder — still — if this was the right home. Keep in mind, there are several ways to hit the wrong house. Police could misread the warrant just before conducting the raid. They could misread the address on a mailbox. Or, the person who makes the undercover by could err in relaying the location where the buy took place. All have happened too many times to count.

The latter scenario still seems to me to be the most likely explanation in this case. It’s certainly possible that Johnston was sharing her home with a relative who was dealing from inside of it — with or without her knowledge. But given the descriptions offered up by her neighbors, it seems unlikely.

Finally, let me say that my criticisms here aren’t aimed at the raiding officers’ actions once they were inside the home. When someone shoots at you, you shoot back. My concerns are about just about everything that happened up until the exchange of gunfire. The death of an innocent, 92-year woman from police gunfire is, simply, not an acceptable outcome of an investigation into nonviolent drug crimes. And God help us if we as a society get to the point that it is (if we aren’t there already).

We need to figure out what policies and decisions led to that outcome, and we need to change them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 22nd, 2006 at 10:36 pm 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.