DEA Engages In A Wrong-Home SWAT Raid In Tennessee
BY Herschel Smith
6 years, 6 months ago
CNN:
Armed with a federal search warrant, weapons, body armor and flash-bang grenades, DEA agents and members of the Bradley County SWAT team crept up to a house in Cleveland, Tennessee, before dawn Tuesday and then burst inside.
As they swept the entryway, they detonated the grenades and smoke filled the first floor.
Then they opened the basement door and found a man with a gun. They tackled him and told him he was under arrest, wanted for murder.
Except… it was the wrong house and the wrong man.
Spencer Renck says his alarm had just gone off and he was getting up to go to work when he heard the noises upstairs. He grabbed his gun “to protect (his) family from whatever was happening.”
“I thought someone had broke in,” he said in a post on Facebook, recounting the incident. His wife and four children were also in the house.
He went up the basement stairs to see what was going on.
As soon as they open the door I turned around, seen all those guns to pointed at me,” Renck told CNN affiliate WDEF.
That’s when he was tackled, he said, and it took a few minutes before the agents and SWAT team realized they had the wrong address.
“They destroyed my door, door frame, carpet on my stairs blew my ceiling out and burned my living room floor and hallway. All because someone got the wrong house,” Renck wrote on the Facebook post.
He said after they realized their mistake, the agents went to his neighbor’s house.
Renck said that during the raid, one flash-bang grenade went through the open doorway of his young son’s bedroom, and it “blinded and deafened” him.
Now, Renck told WDEF, his son is “worried about how he’s going to sleep at night and he’s wondering if he’s going to have nightmares when he had guns drawn in his room, waking up to a big bang.”
“This operation was a part of a larger ongoing investigation. Unfortunately, this search warrant was initially served on the wrong residence… situations such as these are tragic and DEA takes them very seriously. We intend to look into this matter further and take steps to ensure situations such as this never occur again.”
Hey, I have an idea that will prevent this from ever happening again. Get rid of your dumb ass SWAT team because it violates the fourth amendment. How’d I do?
On May 27, 2018 at 10:38 pm, Adam Baum said:
“Get rid of your dumb ass SWAT team because it violates the fourth amendment.” ; the common sense solution!
On May 27, 2018 at 10:39 pm, Herschel Smith said:
If only we had open minded people who would allow “common sense” SWAT laws.
On May 28, 2018 at 3:55 am, DAN III said:
The CON-stitution is dead. 30,000+ laws violating 2A. AG Sessions loving property confiscation without due process, 4A long gone. And unnatural born citizen and moslem communist barry hussein soetoro-obama, annointed to POTUS, twice ! In clear violation of US Constitution Article 2, Section 1, Clause 5.
The CON-stitution is dead.
Want to get rid of SWAT teams ? Going IRA on them may just be the answer.
On May 28, 2018 at 5:14 am, Michael said:
“Get rid of your dumb ass SWAT team…”
Shouldn’t we do this, if it could save just one child?
On May 28, 2018 at 8:04 am, Ned said:
At least with all the commotion the people “next door” who were so dangerous that police “required” a dynamic entry weren’t alerted. So many officers – so many idiots. (I mean that in the medical sense, of course – Idiot – A person of severe mental deficit, incapable of … normal response to danger)
On May 28, 2018 at 9:58 am, revjen45 said:
“…We intend to look into this matter further and take steps to ensure situations such as this never occur again.”
How about basic literacy as a condition of employment? Reading an address doesn’t seem too hard for a person of normal intelligence (maybe that’s the problem) who can read.
As long as they can do this sort of thing with impunity they will continue to do so, and expect gratitude from the drooling peons for their courage and dedication.
On May 28, 2018 at 11:04 am, DAN III said:
revjen45,
“As long as they can do this sort of thing with impunity they will continue to do so….”.
Exactly.
Until citizens organize to defend themselves from the tyranny and treachery of the scum of government and their attendant “enforcers”, nothing will change for the better. Thus, my earlier remark that perhaps it is time to go Irish Republican Army on the .gov tyrants.
Traditional Americans are moving rapidly toward a circumstance where the only answer to the communist onslaught of the Deep State, is violence. That or continue to grab one’s ankles.
On May 28, 2018 at 12:26 pm, Michael (another one) said:
“Traditional Americans are moving rapidly toward a circumstance where the only answer to the communist onslaught of the Deep State, is violence. That or continue to grab one’s ankles.”
While I don’t disagree, it seems that many Americans prefer to grab their ankles.
On May 28, 2018 at 1:46 pm, ExpatNJ said:
Who cares about “looking into this matter further”? How about fixing the guy’s house? Or, is that preempted by “qualified immunity” again?
Hopefully Spencer Renck just became a DANIII convert …
On May 28, 2018 at 2:35 pm, Cazador said:
Unfortunately, this sort of thing almost happens, more than you think. No matter how many safeguatds are in place, all it takes is one supervisor to say “I don’t care what you know! I order you to hit “that” house”! If you fail to follow the illegal order, you will instantly, and irrevocably, have your career ruined for insubordination. DEA will protect it’s oft times incompetent, sociopathic, managers, at the expense of all else. And DEA has an abundance of sociopaths in it’s management chain. A lesson learned from ATF management. It is every agents responsibility, at all times, to make sure actionable informatipn is accurate; And to speak up instantly to correct any safety, or legality issue. But one is never safe from management reprisal when maintaining the straight and narrow.
On May 28, 2018 at 8:16 pm, Michael (another one) said:
@ExpatNJ –
That’s probably exactly the flag they’ll fly.
On May 29, 2018 at 9:19 am, Gryphon said:
Eventually, they will Hit the Wrong House, were someone is Awake, Sees the pOrcs coming up the Drive, and Opens Up on them before they reach the Door.
Or a Neighbor takes them under Flanking Fire….
On May 29, 2018 at 8:08 pm, Donk said:
SWAT team members have houses, families, etc. You do know where they live right? CA at WRSA refers to them.as local Sat Cong files, eh? Your level of stickingittothemancliosis may vary but resist, think outside the box.
They do these things because they suffer inconsequential consequences. This will never stop until that calculus is reversed and I doubt that reversal will occur at the ballot box.
Lets see if this post gets me a “wellness check” visit.