WILMINGTON, N.C.—Today, a Pender County family filed a federal lawsuit against the Pender and Lee County Sheriff’s Departments after officers raided and damaged their home in April 2024, while searching for a suspect who had never been there. Avery Marshall and his fiancée Alisa Carr teamed up with the Institute for Justice (IJ) to file the lawsuit which seeks to hold officials accountable for overlooking clear evidence they were raiding the wrong home and seeks compensation for the damage.
On April 9 and 10, officers from the Lee County Sheriff’s Department were looking for a suspect accused of breaking into several cars. They believed that the suspect’s phone had pinged within 52 meters of Avery and Alisa’s address in the small Pender County community of Willard. But at least five different properties fall within that radius. Police decided to target Avery and Alisa’s home because they saw a Nissan sedan parked out front, which was the type of car they believed the suspect was driving. However, this car was registered to Alisa at her address, and her car was a different model from the car police were looking for, was ten years newer than that car, and had a different license plate and VIN number. Lee County Sheriff’s Department moved forward with getting a warrant to raid the home, falsely telling the magistrate the cars were one and the same and without telling the magistrate that at least five other properties were within 52 meters of Avery and Alisa’s address.
“The officers did not do their due diligence before conducting this raid, and they misled the magistrate into issuing the warrant without probable cause,” said IJ Attorney Marie Miller. “Nissans are one of the most common cars. If police had taken a minute to observe or look up basic information about Alisa’s car, this entire traumatizing raid would have been avoided.”
A little after midnight on April 10, police began banging at the front door. Avery got up, looked out the window and men with large firearms at his door. The cops then shattered the storm door, busted through the front metal door, and threw two flash-bang grenades into the home. One bounced off Avery’s chest and exploded next to a couch, lighting its underside on fire. The flash-bangs filled the home with noxious fumes. Officers ordered Avery, who was shirtless and had just had back surgery, to lie on the glass-covered floor. At this point, the rest of the family woke up. Police ordered the 9- and 16-year-old kids out of their bedrooms at gunpoint and interrogated them in a police wagon outside.
“The worst part of this whole nightmare was laying on the ground, not being able to do anything, while cops have an AR pointed in my son’s face. All I could do was yell ‘he’s 9-years-old’,” said Avery. “I still lose sleep over it, and I know he does too.”
Officers interrogated Alisa in the kitchen, where the fumes and terror of the situation caused her to have heart palpitations and difficulty breathing. Alisa had suffered two heart attacks in the past and told police her heart was fluttering and she couldn’t breathe. Initially, they accused her of lying and continued to interrogate her, before finally calling for an ambulance to take her to the hospital, where she was treated.
“It was all so dehumanizing. They wouldn’t believe us when we said we didn’t know the guy, they wouldn’t believe me when I said I couldn’t breathe,” said Alisa. “I don’t even feel safe living in my own home anymore because of what happened that night.”
While Alisa was at the hospital, the raid continued. Police searched every nook and cranny, took a sledgehammer to the outside of the home, damaged walls and floors throughout the home, and yanked Avery off the ground while handcuffed, reinjuring his back.
After what felt like an eternity to the family, the police finally left, leaving the home unsecured, fume-filled, and in disarray. Later the next day, the suspect was apprehended in a different county.
Avery, Alisa, and the kids continue to struggle mentally and emotionally from the raid, and they’ve been unable to afford the necessary repairs for the house. The storm door is still shattered and off the frame, the front door still has a dent from the battering ram, the doorframe remains shattered, mold has grown near the front door because of moisture getting in through the damaged door and doorframe, and holes remain from where sledgehammers were used.
“It’s clear that raiding the wrong home and overlooking obvious evidence is an unreasonable thing for the government to do,” said IJ Attorney Jared McClain. “At a minimum, the government should be required to compensate these innocent people for the damage to their home.”
IJ is the national leader holding the government accountable when it damages innocent people’s homes or raids the wrong home during SWAT raids. Later this month, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in a similar IJ case seeking to hold FBI agents accountable for raiding the wrong home in suburban Atlanta. IJ also has cases seeking compensation for the victims of botched raids in Los Angeles and South Bend, Indiana.