Many times after a high-profile SWAT raid goes wrong, the ensuing town hall forums, media inquiries, and investigations give other victims of similar raids the chance to come forward. Many are people who were too afraid or embarrassed to come forward after the raids actually happened will feel more empowered in a public forum, where they know there will be no repercussions against them.

From the AJC:

During the four-hour-long meeting, the crowd — which at times swelled to more than 300 — angrily recounted stories about drug raids into their homes when officers knocked down doors, armed with warrants that were unsigned.

After the Alberta Spruill raid, Manhattan Borough President Virginia Fields held a town meeting where similar stories came out. She was moved enough to have her staff speak with the victims, and work to authenticate their stories. Her resulting report effectively rebuffed NYPD’s attempt to portray the Spruill raid as the classic “tragic but isolated incident.” She and the NYC media relayed dozens of similar cases of botched, wrong-door raids, most of which, like Spruill’s, were conducted solely on the tip of a single informant.

They actually got the city to promise some real reforms, though it wasn’t long before the city returned to business as usual.

So I’d advise journalists, politicians, and activists in Atlanta to seek out other victims of these raids, attempt to document them, and use them to buttress your calls for reforming the way these raids are conducted. Certainly, there will be some people trying to capitalize on the uproar. But it’s not difficult to verify many claims to a reasonable degree of certainty, as Fields’ staff did.

Bring these other victims out, and have them testify at the coming town hall meetings and public hearings. Show that this isn’t an anomaly, it’s a pattern. It’s the inevitable consequence when you mix the use of informants, lack of oversight and accountability, and paramilitary tactics.

It will not only help you make the case for reform not just in Atlanta, it’ll give the rest of us yet more ammunition to get policies changed in the rest of the country.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 29th, 2006 at 9:53 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.