Posted on 07/29/2023 12:47:33 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Shayla Tapp was in the shower at her Roxboro home when she heard the knocking on her door.
“I am in the shower,” she said she shouted. “I said it like three times.”
Tapp, 36, grabbed a towel and was drying off as she stepped over the tub and out of the bathroom.
Next she saw her backdoor fly off the hinges as about six police officers with guns drawn raced toward her shouting and cursing.
“Shut the f — up,” the officers yelled, Tapp said. “Get the f — down.” Officers had been at Tapp’s house earlier that day to improperly seize her dog, Abraham Rubert-Schewel, her attorney, said.
Officers returned within hours to execute a swat-style raid in retaliation for Tapp expressing her displeasure about police taking her dog, Rubert-Schewel contends. TOP VIDEOS Top Videos 00:36 01:30 ACC Kickoff: Duke taking challengehead-on in Mike Elko’s second year
Six months later, the district attorney dismissed two misdemeanor charges against Tapp, stating that officers didn’t have the right to take Tapp’s pet or burst into her home.
“Body camera video showed officers served the search warrant in a ‘no-knock’ manner despite there being no articulable suspicion of drug trafficking or drug trade or anything other than a Class 3 misdemeanor,” stated Assistant District Attorney Michael Carpenter on the court form dismissing Tapp’s two charges.
Now Tapp and members of the NAACP—appalled by what they say was a violation of civil rights—are demanding accountability and change within the Roxboro police and across the state.
“I thought the police were supposed to be someone you can count on, and now I am afraid of them,” said Tapp, who with NAACP members will make her case at 2 p.m. today in front of Roxboro Municipal Building. T
he News & Observer requested interviews from Roxboro Mayor Merilyn Newell and City manager Brooks Lockhart, both of whom referred questions to Roxboro police.
City correspondence indicated both Roxboro Police Chief David Hess and police department spokesman Sgt. Chris Dickerson were out of the office Wednesday. In an email Thursday morning, Hess said both he and Dickerson were unavailable for interviews.
IT STARTED WITH A DOG, WOMAN SAYS
On Jan. 6, Tapp, had dropped her two daughters off at school, she said in an interview.
One her way home, she said she saw a woman with a dog in a parking lot across the street that Tapp recognized as her King, which had been missing for about a month.
Tapp approached the woman, said the dog was hers and showed her photos from her phone taken when the dog was a puppy, she said. She eventually left with the dog and the woman didn’t object, Tapp said.
Tapp took the dog home, where local police soon arrived.
One officer came to the door, demanding the dog and not listening to Tapp’s explanation, Tapp said. Tapp brought the dog to the front door, and another officer took it, Tapp said. News alerts in your inbox Sign up for email alerts and be the first to know when news breaks.
When officers used a battering ram to knock down Tapp’s back door at about 1 pm, she didn’t know how to react, she said.
She ended up dropping her towel to raise her hands as she bent down on one knee.
“I just knew I was going to die,” she said.
A woman officer eventually took Tapp, a single mother with three children under the age of 20, to another room where she put on clothes. She was then brought outside and arrested on two misdemeanor charges of possession of marijuana and possession of marijuana paraphernalia.
Officers found 2.6 grams of marijuana, with an estimated value of $9.10, police reports say.
Tapp said the incident changed her. If she hears noises while in the shower, her legs and hands shake. She’s unable to sleep, has trouble being around other people and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“I am not myself anymore,” she said.
The search warrant was issued by magistrate H. Willaford and sought by Officer B. Solomon, according to court documents. Sgt. Alfred Cox was the officer who took the dog, according to court documents and Tapp’s attorney.
Tapp still doesn’t have her dog, but she isn’t sure what steps she should take to get it back, she said.
“I would love to have my dog back,” said Tapp, a credit manager at a retail business in Roxboro. Shayla Tapp says she is traumatized after Roxboro police rammed her door and raided her home in January. The raid occurred after Sgt. Alfred Cox responded to Ms. Tapp’s home and took possession of her dog. Police obtained a warrant after the officer claimed to smell marijuana at her residence. Travis Long tlong@newsobserver.com
NO-KNOCK SEARCHES
In a court document dismissing the charges, the prosecutor wrote that the officers took the dog “without any legal authority or process.”
The raid was improper because there was no indication evidence would be destroyed or someone was endangered, the prosecutor wrote. Those are elements required by state law for forcible police entry without notice.
Mike Waters, district attorney for Person and nearby counties, said the dismissal was made at his direction. He declined to answer specific questions about the case, but said his decision was made after he considered whether the case would be successful and if it was consistent with his prosecution priorities.
Tapp and her supporters said they want officers to be held accountable. Roxboro Police Department should bar “no-knock” searches in which the police give no or little notice before entering a home, they said.
State legislators should also consider changing state law, to clarify that no knock searches shouldn’t be used when investigating misdemeanor crimes, Rubert-Schewel said.
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires searches to be reasonable and proportional to what police are looking for, Rubert-Schewel said.
“We don’t want police officers doing SWAT-style warrant executions based on the smell of marijuana, especially at a working mother’s house who is not a known gang member or violent person,” he said.
A number of states across the nation have been considering legislation limiting no-knock warrants following police officers killing civilians after entering a home without knocking, including Breonna Taylor who was killed by police in Louisville, Kentucky in 2020.
Michael Muhammad, an investigative officer for the Granville County branch of the NAACP, said Roxboro should pay Tapp a settlement and the officers should be fired.
Police violated Tapp’s rights when officers took the dog, he said.
“Everything that followed after that was wrong,” Muhammad said. “I mean everything.”
They got home safe, right?
No, they should be charged with felonious assault, battery, false arrest, theft, kidnapping, violation of her civil rights, to name just a few. “Michael Muhammad, an investigative officer for the Granville County branch of the NAACP, said Roxboro should pay Tapp a settlement and the officers should be fired.
I wonder if somebody on theforce is rated to the dog thief. Got the cops to do her dirty work for her.
(USA: Land of the free, Because of the Brave.)
************
I’d say that has changed a tad since 1492 when
Columbus sailed the ‘Ocean Blue’.
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