FBI SWAT Raids the Wrong House. Terrorizes Family.

Before the sun came up one morning, Trina Martin, her son Gabe, and her boyfriend Toi Cliatt were startled awake in their home by the sound of a flashbang grenade exploding in the Martin home. Trina’s instinct was to run to her 7-year-old’s bedroom, but Toi, fearing for her life, grabbed her and pulled her to their walk-in closet. As Toi was reaching for a shotgun to protect his home, an FBI agent opened the door and snatched Toi. Toi was handcuffed and thrown onto the floor.

https://ij.org/?post_type=case&p=245246

Agents angrily shouted questions at Toi, but when he told them his address, the room went silent. The SWAT team realized they were in the wrong house. Agents quickly left and raided the target house. After that, an agent returned, apologized, and left a business card for his supervisor.

But the FBI provided no help to Trina, Gabe, and Toi as they struggled to live, work, and go to school with the trauma of the raid hanging over them. So, Trina, Gabe, and Toi filed a lawsuit against the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Congress passed the FTCA 80 years ago to provide everyday Americans with a remedy for harms caused by federal employees. Congress extended the FTCA further in 1974 to ensure that it covered mistaken federal police raids like the one committed against Trina, Gabe, and Toi.

But in the decades since, the courts have made a muddled mess out of what should be a straight-forward law. Whether the FTCA actually provides the remedy Congress intended depends not on the language of the statute but on where in the country the language is being read. Unfortunately for Trina, Gabe, and Toi, the interpretation came from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which applies broad immunities to the FTCA.

Here, because the court inexplicably concluded that FBI agents have the “discretionary authority” to raid the wrong house, sovereign immunity barred the claims. According to the court, Trina, Gabe, and Toi had no remedy for the raid because the almost-deadly mistakes that led the FBI to kick in an innocent family’s door were arguably characterized as a “policy decision.”

Now, the Institute for Justice (IJ) is asking the Supreme Court to hear Trina, Gabe, and Toi’s case. IJ insists that the courts respect Congress’s decision to provide a remedy for federal harms. The courts cannot create immunity where Congress has waived it.