ANOTHER WRONG-HOUSE RAID: Ninth Circuit to DEA: Putting a Gun to an 11-Year-Old’s Head Is Not OK. No, but it’s standard operating procedure, apparently.
There should be no official immunity for no-knock raids.
Plus: “While this raid was conducted under President George W. Bush, the deputy administrator of the DEA at that time was Michele Leonhart. She is now the administrator of the DEA, thanks to an appointment by President Barack Obama. Furthermore, the Obama Administration could have declined to defend the DEA in this case. Instead, Obama’s Justice Department has decided to make the case that federal agents should be allowed to hold guns to the heads of children.” (Emphasis added.)
And why aren’t the names of all the agents published? They should be publicly shamed for their error, and their behavior. From the opinion: “At the time the warrant was issued, DEA Agents believed that a vehicle belonging to suspected drug trafficker Luis Alvarez was registered at the Avina residence. After executing the search warrant on January 20, 2007, the agents discovered they had inadvertently written down a license number of a vehicle belonging to Thomas Avina instead of a vehicle belonging to Luis Alvarez.”
No ordinary citizen who made such an error, and then threatened children with guns, would enjoy anonymity.