On Saturday, June 7, a rally was held at the Habersham County Courthouse in to support Bounkham "Bou Bou" Phonesavanh, a 19 month old baby who was nearly killed during a recent SWAT team raid. Baby Bou Bou is in a medically induced coma and in critical condition at Egleston Children's Hospital in Atlanta.
On May 28th, a Habersham County Sheriff SWAT unit raided a home in Cornelia, Georgia, where an undercover officer purchased $50 worth of crystal meth from 30-year-old, Wanis Thonetheva, the nephew of the home's owners. The raid took place at around 3 AM. The officers involved failed to investigate whether or not children were present or whether Thonetheva would even be at the house. They obtained a "no-knock" warrant, allowing the SWAT team to break in the door without knocking or announcing themselves as law enforcement. An officer threw a "flash bang" grenade into Bou Bou's crib where he was sleeping. Thonetheva was not at the house and no drugs were found.
Saturday's rally was well attended by concerned citizens who gathered to express concerns and outrage about this tragically botched SWAT raid. Several local politicians and activists appeared, but more importantly several local residents were in attendance. One of the speakers expressed that he was not a politician or with an organization, he simply said "I am a citizen."
Nick Messina whose son was killed by an Atlanta SWAT team sniper also spoke. Mr. Messina was emotional, and he struggled to tell the story of his son. The crowd was silent as he spoke through his tears. He said he didn't care about the politics involved, he just wanted to share his story in hopes that something would be done to protect families like his and Bou Bou's from the militarization of law enforcement.
Kara Dansky, senior counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said incidents like this one highlight the growing militarization of America's law enforcement agencies.
"SWAT teams were created in the1960s for a very specific set of scenarios like hostage taking, active shooter scenes and true emergencies," Dansky told The Huffington Post. "We're seeing increasingly that police are using SWAT teams to do raids of people's homes often in low-level drug cases. This sometimes causes an escalated risk of violence as we saw in this case."
Dansky said authorities have a right to protect themselves, but she said these tactics are sometimes misused.
"Even if they're serving these search warrants on a person's home, they're doing so at night with a paramilitary force of 15 to 20 heavily armed officers and using military weapons and tactics," Dansky said. "It's hard to understand why these types of actions are warranted for low-level drug cases."
The rally was non-partisan, attracting participants throughout the political spectrum. Members and organizers of the Georgia Tea Party, ACLU of Georgia, NRA, Georgia Taxpayers Alliance, and NORML were in attendance. Regardless of their political beliefs, attendees were unified in their belief that the militarization of law enforcement, and the growing prevalence of "no-knock" warrants are a serious threat to freedom. Participants expressed concern that these police tactics constitute a serious threat to the constitutional freedoms of all Americans.
In 2007, Senators Vincent Fort (D) and Jeff Mullis (R) introduced a bipartisan bill to limit "no-knock" warrants, in the Georgia State Senate in response to the murder of Kathryn Johnson, a 92 year-old woman who was shot six times when an Atlanta SWAT team raided her home. The police had raided the wrong house by mistake. The bill overwhelmingly passed the Senate but failed to make it through the House.
A second rally is planned for this upcoming Saturday, June 14. Baby Bou Bou's parents are expected to speak and a much larger crowd is likely. The ACLU encourages all concerned citizens to attend the rally and support legislative reforms that will prevent future tragedies.
