Family Fights To Recover From Midnight SWAT Raid

When Alisa Carr, Avery Marshall, and their two kids went to bed one night last spring, they had no idea that sheriff’s deputies were watching their house, duping a judge into issuing a warrant to search the home, and planning a midnight raid. At about 1:00 a.m., more than a dozen officers stormed the house. They shattered a glass door, barged through other doors, shouted profanities, detonated flash-bang grenades, and aimed military-grade firearms at each family member before interrogating them like criminals. The family was shocked, confused, and terrified. 

Officers had been looking for a man suspected of stealing property from unlocked vehicles. But that man had no connection to Alisa and Avery’s family apart from the fact that his phone pinged in their neighborhood. Officers targeted their home, and no others in the neighborhood, because officers saw Alisa’s Nissan parked out front. 

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They believed the suspect had been riding in a medium-gray 2007 Nissan Sentra, registered to the suspect or one of his relatives, with a certain license plate and vehicle identification number—all of which the officers knew or should have known. Alisa’s Nissan was entirely different: a light-silver 2017 Altima, registered to her, with a different license plate and vehicle identification number.

Officers could not have reasonably mistaken Alisa’s car for the suspect’s Nissan. But officers swore to a judge that it was precisely the vehicle they had connected to the suspect. They also failed to inform the judge that at least five other properties and a public road lie within the 52-meter range where the suspect’s phone had pinged. The judge issued a warrant based on the false and misleading information. 

The resulting raid has left the family physically and psychologically scarred. Officers reinjured Avery’s back, on which he had recently undergone surgery. The raid sent Alisa to the hospital with a panic attack and heart-attack symptoms. Their kids now struggle to sleep at night, reliving the raid and worried that their house is not safe. 

Making matters worse, the house was badly damaged. Noxious fumes from flash-bang grenades flooded the house, and officers tracked broken glass everywhere they searched. The front doors and door frame were mangled, and the front wall was cracked. Water now leaks into the house when it rains—especially following the devastating floods that area of North Carolina suffered last fall.

This case continues a pattern of destructive wrong-house raids that is sadly all too familiar to this publication’s loyal readers. Indeed, it illustrates all the points where a raid can go wrong: Officers could get a bogus warrant. They could mistakenly raid the wrong house (as in our latest Supreme Court case, where we expect a ruling any day now). Even if a SWAT team properly raids the correct location to apprehend a criminal suspect, that location could be the home of an innocent and unrelated person who shouldn’t have to shoulder the cost of repairing the damage. 

That’s why IJ is so concerned about the proliferation of dangerous and unjustified SWAT raids—and why we are determined both to hold accountable officials who conduct irresponsible raids and to safeguard the rights of innocent homeowners like Alisa and Avery.

Marie Miller is an IJ attorney.