In April of 2024, I posted You’re on you own: what to do about it. The point of that article was we really are on our own. Government is not able to protect us, and when government wrongs us, it’s going to move heaven and earth to avoid paying for that harm. 

Yes, this means when we need them most, the police aren’t going to be there, and when we don’t want them at all, they just might, particularly if they’re the FBI. More about this shortly.

In the world of reality most Americans occupy, there are very few police officers.  True even in places where they haven’t been defunded and are expected and allowed to do their jobs.  Even if you manage to call 911, it’s going to take longer than you have for the police to respond. Better yet, the police have no legal obligation to protect anyone, and you can’t sue them and win when they don’t. 

That might sound crazy, but if police officers could be sued for failing to protect people about who they had no knowledge or ability to help, who would become a police officer? What city could afford a police force? I’m sure some might think we’d be better off without the police, but their services are vital to a civilized society. 

What happens in that civilized society when the FBI raids the wrong home?

Graphic: IJ.org/YouTube Screenshot

Before the sun rose over Atlanta one morning, Trina Martin, her seven-year-old son Gabe, and her partner Toi Cliatt were jolted awake by the sound of a flashbang grenade exploding in their living room. Toi, fearing that the home was being robbed, pulled Trina into the bedroom closet and reached for his legally owned shotgun. Just as he was about to grab it, an FBI agent barged in, threw him to the ground, and began interrogating him and Trina. All the while, Gabe was separated from his mother as officers stormed into his bedroom with guns drawn.

When Toi told the agents his address, it dawned on them that they had raided the wrong house. The FBI had a warrant—for a house with a different address number on a different street. Now, the Institute for Justice (IJ) is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to revive their lawsuit for accountability, which has been thrown out by the lower courts.

To their sort-of credit, at least one FBI agent involved later came back, apologized and give Toi a supervisor’s business card. He apparently thought the FBI would pay for the damage. He was wrong.

As one might imagine, the case is still winding its way through the federal courts. There is a law, the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), designed to help people like Trina and Toi, but thus far lower courts have decided its exceptions don’t require the government to reimburse them. Because only a tiny portion of all cases submitted yearly to the Supreme Court are ever heard, it’s unlikely Trina and Toi will ever receive justice.

An allied problem is how the FBI could have made this kind of mistake? In this case, had Toi been just a little faster getting to his shotgun, his survivors would almost certainly be engaged in a wrongful death suit instead of filing a claim under the FTCA.

The FBI is supposed to be America’s premier law enforcement agency, but they’re not only making rookie mistakes, they’ve strayed far from enforcing the law against dangerous criminals and have become the Harris/Biden Administration’s Praetorian Guard and not-so-secret police.

In this case they apparently had a valid search warrant, which means at least one agent had to do pseudo-due diligence. They had to develop a criminal case, positively identify the place to be searched and persons involved, and particularly describe the persons or things to be seized and explain why this constituted probable cause. This is required by the Fourth Amendment, and no competent judge would issue a warrant without those assurances.

In other words, at least one involved FBI agent had to actually visit the location of their planned raid to be tactically prepared for the raid. Intelligent agents would have spent days surveilling the home, again to tactically prepare and to establish the daily routine of the people living there. Presumably, they would have gotten the address right. It’s not like this was the difference between 2302 Smith Street and 2302 Smith Court. They got the house number and street name wrong. Competent law enforcement agencies include complete house descriptions and photos in their warrant applications.

That they apparently didn’t do any of that is, to put it mildly, alarming. Sadly, circa October, 2024, in the age of Harris/Biden, it’s no longer surprising.

Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.