Posted on 06/26/2014 9:43:47 AM PDT by Altariel
HOMESTEAD, FL — EXCLUSIVE — A Florida couple was traumatized after a dozen heavily armed SWAT agents crashed through their front door, flash-banged their cat, aimed rifles at them and searched their home without explanation.
* * * * *
The raid took place in the pre-dawn hours of June 10th, 2014. At approximately 6:16 a.m., Kari Edwards and her live-in boyfriend were intruded upon by men dressed in full SWAT gear and wielding rifles. After smashing down the couple’s front door, agents tossed concussion grenades and proceeded into the home.
“They busted in like I was a terrorist or something,” said Ms. Edwards.
SWAT enters Kari Edwards’ residence with rifles drawn. HOMESTEAD, FL — EXCLUSIVE — A Florida couple was traumatized after a dozen heavily armed SWAT agents crashed through their front door, flash-banged their cat, aimed rifles at them and searched their home without explanation.
* * * * *
The raid took place in the pre-dawn hours of June 10th, 2014. At approximately 6:16 a.m., Kari Edwards and her live-in boyfriend were intruded upon by men dressed in full SWAT gear and wielding rifles. After smashing down the couple’s front door, agents tossed concussion grenades and proceeded into the home.
“They busted in like I was a terrorist or something,” said Ms. Edwards.
Broken door. (Source: Kari Edwards) Personal belongings tossed everywhere. (Source: Kari Edwards) “[An officer] demanded that I drop the towel I was covering my naked body with,” Ms. Edwards said, “before snatching it off me physically and throwing me to the ground.”
“While I lay naked, I was cuffed so tightly I could not feel my hands. For no reason, at gunpoint,” Edwards said. “[Agents] refused to cover me, no matter how many times I asked.”
Ms. Edwards said her boyfriend told her that an agent holding an assault rifle to her back was gawking at her exposed body. “Eying me up and down like I was eye candy,” she said.
The house was equipped with a surveillance system, which captured video of the agents from a couple different angles. Here is the first angle of the exterior of the property:
“I have never been in any trouble before,” Ms. Edwards told Police State USA. “Haven’t even had a traffic ticket in over ten years.”
In fact, she said she used to work for the Department of Homeland Security, but became disabled from an on-the-job injury in 2006. She identified the raid as a DHS operation.
“I know I saw ‘ICE’ on one shirt and my boyfriend saw ‘Gang Task Force’ on another,” she told Police State USA. “Someone’s just said, ‘Special Agent.’”
Edwards requested to see the agents’ identification but was not obliged. One officer pointed to his uniform that read ‘POLICE’ and allegedly said, “Isn’t this enough ID for you?”
“When I told him that I could buy that [uniform] up in Miami, he called me ‘retarded’ and ‘f***ing stupid,’” Edwards recalled.
Shattered shower door. (Source: Kari Edwards) A scorch-mark from the flashbang. (Source: Kari Edwards) Edwards said that the SWAT team threw a flashbang at her cat, Dusty. She says that Dusty normally had a friendly personality and greets everyone, but now is “fearful and hard of hearing.”
When agents discovered that they were being recorded by home surveillance cameras, they forcefully twisted the cameras, saying that they “can’t be recorded.”
In the below clip, a flashbang was detected and an agent is seen spotting the camera and jarring it so it faced a wall.
“My boyfriend, who is asthmatic, started having trouble breathing from the lingering smoke created by the flashbang grenade, and asked for his inhaler. The agent said, ‘Do I need to call paramedics?’ My boyfriend said, ‘No, I just need my inhaler, can someone to get it for me?’ Again he was answered with the paramedic offer,” Edwards said. Finally another officer gave him his inhaler.
The agents “trashed the house,” and reportedly smashed some clear glass shower doors and broke a vintage statue.
Broken door jam. (Source: Kari Edwards) Broken door jam. (Source: Kari Edwards) A broken statue. (Source: Kari Edwards) Ms. Edwards said a warrant was finally given to them after 2 hours. She said it lists her address and was signed by Jonathan Goodman, a federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The warrant says the agents were authorized to look for computers & electronic media.
Curiously, Ms. Edwards said the agents ignored most of the electronics in the home. “They didn’t take any and didn’t even look at most of it,” she said. “We have a lot [of electronics] because my boyfriend fixes up broken computers to resell.”
“I still don’t know why,” Ms. Edwards told Police State USA. “I called the judge’s chambers today and the secretary said he or someone else would get back to me.”
Certainly the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have time to be checking the illegals flooding into our southern border because they need to use all this paid-time and weaponry to visually rape somebody who for all appearances seems to be minding her own business...
Priorities, people!
They’d probably drag you off site and torture you until you told them where the camera was.
I’d tell them that it was streaming to a remote server and everything they were doing would become public, even if they killed me.
Here is one outcome of this recklessness. I hope these parents get justice
Yep,
And the cops charged the parents. Because it was their fault the cops tossed a flash bang into the crib.
Outward swinging door is a lot more difficult to kick in. It would take something like a Halligan tool to pry it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halligan_bar
That is why now is the time to start identifying THOSE WHO GIVE THE ORDERS. Learn who they are, where they live and work, their travel habits, their recreation. They should be the primary targets if they force us to defend ourselves. They must have "accidents" or simply disappear.
Every agent AND HIS FAMILY should be put through the same thing. If this crap doesn’t stop people are going to start fighting back. Personally, I hope everyone of them .... in the so called line of duty.
When are cops going to be trained on the constitution and trained to follow it? When is a politician going to start making noise?
way more than a couple years. higher standards for those with more power that abuse it.
Well!These guys normally conceal their faces just like our Islamic terrorist pals do to hide their Identity.
Just imagine if the Nazi SS units were smart enough to do that. Thousands of the SS bastards would have gotten away with murder.
If there was no search warrant, then of course, this is an flagrant unconstitutional violation of rights, and heads should roll. Even if there was a warrant, the described force used was way overboard and excessive.
But the story seems very incomplete. It is presented as a completely random attack by police. Was it the wrong address? Was there a reason given?
I recently read that in 1980 there were 3,000 SWAT raids, this year there were 80,000!
Whether there was a warrant or not, or a wrong address or not, the actions are those of a Secret, unaccountable, Police Force.
How many Secret Police give rhyme or reason for the destruction they cause?
Cops throwing grenades ping.
Edwards requested to see the agents’ identification but was not obliged. One officer pointed to his uniform that read ‘POLICE’ and allegedly said, “Isn’t this enough ID for you?”
Secret police is secret.
That’s not the right person to see in a naked and handcuffed thread.
We should probably click on an ad whenever the British press runs stories like this. Reward them for writing stories that our own press will not.
People that live in areas where the stinking gooberment can tell you what kind of damned door you have to have and what way it must open have my sentiment and pity.
I'm sure your code enforcers would piss themselves if they encountered my door. It'll damn sure withstand a hurricane and a pervert with a flash bang or a Haligan.
But then, I don't need a damned nanny state to tell me what I should or shouldn't do in a hurricane or a home invasion.
Screw 'em.
FUBO.
I believe the article I read was a response to this incident. They simply threw the concussion grenade in without looking first.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.