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SWAT Team Raids Innocent Family Over Stolen AirPods Dropped on Their Street (www.riverfronttimes.com)

submitted 5 months ago by octopus_ink@lemmy.ml to c/thepoliceproblem@lemmy.world

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Around 6:30 p.m. on May 26, Brittany Shamily was at home with her children, including an infant, when police used a battering ram to bust in her front door. “What the hell is going on?” she screamed, terrified for herself and her family. “I got a three-month-old baby!”

...

While the family was detained outside, the SWAT team "ransacked" their house, the lawsuit says. One SWAT team member punched a basketball-sized hole in the drywall. Another broke through a drop ceiling. They turned over drawers and left what had been an orderly house in disarray.

After this had gone on for more than half an hour, the AirPods were located — on the street outside the family's home.

It later came to light that one of Shamily and Briscoe’s daughters saw what was likely the stolen Charger careening through their neighborhood a little before 7 a.m. that day. (The vehicle later crashed on the 1700 block of Foley Drive, about six miles from the family’s home.) It stands to reason that someone in the Charger tossed a pair of stolen AirPods onto the street in the vicinity of the quiet house police later busted into and ransacked.

The family, represented by Schock and Erich Vieth, is suing for damages stemming from embarrassment, unreasonable use of force, loss of liberty, and other factors. The lawsuit notes that neither Shamily or Briscoe had been in any trouble with the law for at least a dozen years prior to the incident. "There was no probable cause for the search warrant and had the affidavit contained complete information, the state court judge would not have approved the warrant," the suit allege

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[-] just_change_it@lemmy.world 52 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

The article implies the swat team was sent due to an armed carjacking that morning. Someone got a warrant for search and seizure based on geolocation results from the airpods and they assumed the carjackers would be hanging out at this address.

It's a rental home. Nothing is mentioned about the identity of the owner of the home. After looking up the house on zillow though it's about 113k. It's a dead end street surrounded by homes that are valued under 100k. I didn't realize that federal minimum wage would be enough to pay a mortgage in 2024, but apparently it is possible. This isn't super relevant other than the fact i'm looking at buying a house near Boston and I did a double take that a home exists in this price range and isn't in a trailer park. 113k here won't even buy you a parking spot.

After looking up the address it looks like a group of juveniles were involved with the carjacking so names are impossible to find. The most bizzare thing though is that a couple hours after the carjacking the car was picked up 3.5 miles / an 8 minute drive from the house in wylin court with the suspects bailing from the car and the cops arresting them... I wonder when the swatting happened at 630pm who they thought they would find?

Fun fact, the murder rate in St Louis per capita is the 7th highest in the world, after six cities in Mexico. #1 in the US. 87.83 per 100k. https://www.statista.com/statistics/243797/ranking-of-the-most-dangerous-cities-in-the-world-by-murder-rate-per-capita/

I'm not justifying anything. I learned a lot that I never knew about St Louis MO and holy fuck is it rough.

[-] MB420GFY@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

downtown st louis is actually pretty nice. i wouldn't recommend too many places in the south, but st louis seemed kinda nice.

[-] SpeedLimit55@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I didn’t know that about St Louis, I went there for a conference a few years ago and mostly stayed downtown but I drove around a bit one day and it just seemed like an old Southern city. I never felt unsafe but I also lived in an old Southern city with lots of crime for a while so things outside of downtown didn’t seem much different.

There are still many places in the US where you can get a decent house in the lower 100s but they are mostly all rural.

this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024

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THE POLICE PROBLEM

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When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.

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Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.

The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.

All this is a path to a police state.

In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.

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