Court Rules North Carolina Family’s Lawsuit Can Move Forward After SWAT Team Raided, Damaged Wrong Home

WILMINGTON, N.C.—On Thursday, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina denied qualified immunity for officers who raided an innocent family’s Pender County home in April 2024. The lawsuit brought against the officers and their government employers by Avery Marshall, Alisa Carr and their attorneys from the Institute for Justice (IJ) can now move forward.  

“This decision is a massive first step toward getting justice for Avery and Alisa after they were subjected to a terrifying raid that never should have happened,” said IJ Attorney Marie Miller. “When officers overlook obvious evidence they’re raiding the wrong house, they must be held accountable. And when law-enforcement officers destroy innocent people’s property trying to catch a criminal, the public as a whole must foot the bill—not the unlucky innocent homeowners.”  

In April 2024, officers from the Lee and Pender County Sheriff’s Departments were looking for a suspect accused of stealing from parked cars in various counties. They believed the suspect’s phone pinged off a cell tower near Avery and Alisa’s home in the small hamlet of Willard. But many homes and other properties were within the radius of where the ping occurred, and police decided to raid Avery and Alisa’s home simply because there was a Nissan parked out front, and they believed the suspect had been driving a Nissan. But the Nissan the officers believed the suspect had been riding in was a different model than Alisa’s, was ten years newer, had a different VIN number and license plate number, and was registered to the suspect or a relative, not Alisa.  

Instead of verifying any of those facts, the officers conducted a heavily-armed midnight raid, terrorizing a sleeping family, smashing windows and doors, throwing a flashbang grenade into the home, reinjuring Avery’s recently operated on back, causing Alisa heart palpitations, and holding the couple’s 9-and-16-year-old children at gun point. After searching every nook and cranny of the home, officers left it in shambles. The suspect was apprehended the next day in a different county.  

“That night caused our family so much trauma and pain, so we’re very happy that our lawsuit against those responsible for it can move forward,” said Avery. “What happened to our family should never happen to anyone.” 

In Thursday’s decision, the court held that the officer who applied for a warrant to search Alisa and Avery’s home was not entitled to qualified immunity for falsely swearing to a judge that officers had observed the suspect’s vehicle at Alisa and Avery’s home. The court also denied qualified immunity to the individual officers who conducted the raid, for two reasons: First, the officers violated the knock-and-announce rule—by intruding into the home less than a minute after arriving in the middle of the night, without adequately announcing their presence and reasonably allowing the occupants to open the door. Second, the officers kept searching the home after explicitly observing “that ain’t the car” the suspect had been associated with. As the court explained, the officers, “should have discontinued the search after realizing errors in the warrant.” The court also allowed the federal and state constitutional takings claims to proceed against the sheriff’s offices for the damage they caused to the home. 

The court gave the defendants 14 days from the order’s date to answer Alisa and Avery’s complaint.