Bungled SWAT Raid Leaves 12-year-old Girl Badly Burned, No Meth Lab Found
Adan Salazar – Infowars.com
An early morning SWAT team raid on an alleged meth house produced no meth lab or arrests and instead left a 12-year-old girl badly burned by a flashbang grenade.
It all happened at a Billings, Montana home Tuesday around 6am. While the Fasching family slept, a SWAT team assembled outside their home mobilizing a coordinated raid.
The grenade used was of the non-lethal “flash bang” variety, made to disorient and cause temporary vision and hearing impairment through a bright flash and a loud blast. It was positioned into a window by a SWAT member using a metal pole called a “boomstick,” which acts as a detonator once the grenade is in place.
The window SWAT chose, however, was in a room where two girls were sleeping, and due to an unexpected delay the grenade fell off the boomstick and went off right next to a girl that lay sleeping on the floor under the window.
“A simple knock on the door and I would’ve let them in,” the girl’s mother Jackie Fasching told the Billings Gazette.
“She has first- and second-degree burns down the left side of her body and on her arms,” Mrs. Fasching stated. “She’s got severe pain. Every time I think about it, it brings tears to my eyes.”
The Billings police chief called the raid’s damage “totally unforeseen, totally unplanned and extremely regrettable.”
“Well, I’ll give him unplanned. Though I don’t think he meant it in the way I mean it. Sorry, but when you’re blindly shoving a flash grenade attached to a boomstick through a window, and you clearly have no idea who or what is in that room where you’re detonating, the possibility that an innocent person might get burned is not “totally unforeseen.” It’s only unforeseen when you’re so caught up in your drug war that you can’t be bothered to take the time to consider the possible collateral damage your actions may cause,” The Agitator quipped. [some emphasis added]
Instead of issuing a formal apology, Billings Police Chief Rich St. John blamed gross negligence on the part of police intelligence who supposedly had “done their homework” prior to the raid. “The information that we had did not have any juveniles in the house and did not have any juveniles in the room,” St. John told the Gazette. “We generally do not introduce these disorienting devices when they’re present.”
Damage done to both the house and the girl were photographed by Mrs. Fasching and provided to the Gazette. One image depicts the indention produced by the grenade on the bedroom wall. Another shows the extent of Fasching’s daughter’s burns.
Although the Billings police department was clearly in the wrong, police chief St. John stated they would not admit their mistake until a formal investigation was concluded. “If we’re wrong or made a mistake, then we’re going to take care of it,” St. John said. “But if it determines we’re not, then we’ll go with that. When we do this, we want to ensure the safety of not only the officers, but the residents inside.”
Fasching worries that her daughter will need counseling after the traumatizing event, but holds the police department firmly culpable. “I would like to see whoever threw those grenades in my daughter’s room be reprimanded…If anybody else did that it would be aggravated assault. I just want to see that the city is held accountable for what they did to my children.”
Related posts:
- Political Profiling of a “Constitutionalist” Turns Simple Domestic Call Into Full on SWAT Raid
- SWAT Team Kills 69-year-old Man For Having Prescription Painkillers
- Tucson SWAT Team Defends Shooting Iraq Vet 60 Times
- TSA Gives Invasive Pat Down to 6-Year-Old Girl
- Cops Kill Dog, Handcuff Kids in Wrong-House Raid
Loading ...
Should U.S. Government Pay Americans’ Drug Rehab Costs—If the Government Is Helping–Cartel(s) Import Illegal Drugs?
If The latest revelations are true, mentioned in the October 5, 2012 New American article “Stratfor Sources: U.S. Troops in Mexico as Feds Aid Cartels” that U.S. Government supports certain drug cartels as “first reported by Narco News”, after WikiLeaks released hacked e-mails from Stratfor, it would appear to confirm accusations made last year by a top Sinaloa operative Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, that U.S. government offered his criminal syndicate virtual immunity to import multi-ton quantities of drugs across the border.
If U.S. government is helping the Sinaloa Cartel criminal racketeering enterprise or other Cartel import tons of drugs into the United States—Americans injured by those illegal drugs should not hesitate to file Civil Racketeering Lawsuits against the U.S. Government and the law enforcement agencies that participated in helping Cartels import illegal-drugs.
U.S. criminal courts order defendants as a condition of probation, to attend and pay for expensive private and non-profit drug rehab programs creating a $12-Billion dollar industry. If e.g. the Sinaloa Drug Cartel is the predominant importer of drugs into the United States because of U.S. Government support, shouldn’t the U.S. Government pay the drug rehabilitation costs of American drug users? It would appear Californians injured by a Cartel’s illegal-drugs that U.S. Government helped import into the United States, could sue U.S. Government and any law enforcement agency that assisted the Cartel import illegal-drugs under The California Drug Dealer Liability Act Effective January 1997. In brief the “Act” provides a civil remedy for damages to persons in a community injured as a result of the use of an illegal controlled substance. These persons include parents, employers, insurers, governmental entities, and others who pay for drug treatment or employee assistance programs, as well as infants injured as a result of exposure to controlled substances in utero (” drug babies”). This “Act” enables them to recover damages from those persons in the community who have joined the marketing of illegal controlled substances. A further purpose of this Act is to shift, to the extent possible, the cost of the damage caused by the existence of the market for illegal controlled substances in a community to those who illegally profit from that market.
Consequently if U.S. Government supports the Sinaloa Cartel or other Cartel that import illegal-drugs into California, victims of illegal-drug use should be able to sue the U.S. Government along with all other participants.
Every year innocent landlords of residential rental property and motels defend their property against Government Civil Asset Forfeiture because unbeknownst to an owner, a tenant or guest at their property is alleged by government to have sold or distributed illegal drugs. It is a conflict of interest for U.S. Government to forfeit real estate from innocent landlords if Government participates is supporting illegal-drug Cartel criminal enterprise to import illegal drugs into America—foreseeable to taint innocent landlords’ property.
Many U.S. Cities have blocks of blighted buildings caused by illegal drug activity that collapsed real estate values and collected property taxes communities depend on to support their infra structure. If U.S. Government is helping the Sinaloa Drug Cartel or other cartel flood America with illegal drugs, cities and counties economically damaged by U.S. Government’s illegal-drug activities should file Civil RICO Suits to recover damages from the U.S. Government and law enforcement agencies that helped a Drug Cartel import illegal drugs into the U.S. See California Drug Dealer Liability Act Effective January 1997, other states passed similar bills.
Illegal-drug distribution in America increasingly corrupts police. If U.S. Government actually offered or actually helped the Sinaloa Drug Cartel or other Cartel import illegal-drugs into the U.S as alleged in numerous reports, what kind of message is U.S. Government sending law enforcement. Almost every week the news reports police arrested for selling illegal drugs, taking bribes, falsifying evidence to arrest U.S. Citizens. Police corruption can only get worse if U.S. Government supports drug-Cartels import illegal-drugs into the United States.
See the October 5, 2012 New American Article at:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/13118-stratfor-sources-us-troops-in-mexico-as-feds-aid-cartels