The city is releasing the search warrants. Apparently, the no-knock was issued after a confidential informant claimed to have bought $50 in crack cocaine from inside the house.

There are no reports of police finding crack anywhere in the house, only a “small” amount of marijuana. For the past week, police have told us that “narcotics” were found in the home, leading some to speculate that police had the correct house. We now know it was a negligible amount marijuana, which doesn’t even coincide with the drug the informant claims to have bought to earn the warrant. Which means it’s looking more and more like Ms. Johnston was the victim of a mistake.

The article also doesn’t say why a no-knock was issued. Under federal law, police must show the existence of exigent circumstances (i.e. evidence that the drugs will be disposed of, or that the suspect presents the possibility of bodily harm to the police) to get a no-knock.

Chief Pennington will hold a press conference this evening to discuss the case. Most of my questions below are still relevant. But I also wonder who this CI was. Seems now that this raid was conducted quickly and rashly, just a few hours after the buy, and based almost exclusively on the word of this CI. What’s his track record? What did he get in exchange for making the buy and the tip?

And why did police originally say that the CI only told them where the drugs were, at which point an undercover cop made the actual buy?

I will say this: The first few days after the raid were marred by misinformation and what appeared to be obfuscation — classic ass-covering maneuvers. Since his return, Chief Pennington seems to be handling the situation ably. I would guess that the sudden release of the warrants, for example, had something to do with his promise yesterday to conduct an open and transparent investigation. Let’s hope that continues.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 4:30 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.