Just because they invaded the exact house as specified in the warrant does not mean that there is no chance that they hit the wrong house. From Radley Balko:
All of which makes me wonder -- still -- if this was the right home. Keep in mind, there are several ways to hit the wrong house. Police could misread the warrant just before conducting the raid. They could misread the address on a mailbox. Or, the person who makes the undercover by could err in relaying the location where the buy took place.The location the informant gave could have been described incorrectly several times before even reaching the warrant.
It is very common downtown for young junkies and dealers to hook up with the elderly and then use their homes for dealing, usually with the owner totally oblivious to the whole thing.
And yet they don't take that into account when making these raids?? If that is true, then they should have had much more surveillance before raiding this house or more properly, if the elderly person living there had no knowledge of the drug-dealing going on -- and as you and your friend in the APD admit, this is common there -- uniformed PD could have just knocked, explained that they think drug dealers may be using the porch of her house without her knowledge and asked to look around -- she would have invited them in and let them search all they want. She probably would have baked cookies for them as they looked around even.
Baked cookies???? We're talking about Atlanta here.