- Raid on innocent woman’s home violated her constitutional rights due to law enforcement’s failure to verify information.
- Innocent person should not pay price for federal error, and those responsible must be held accountable.
- Lawsuit highlights broader issues of oversight and verification in high-risk law enforcement operations.
Yet ANOTHER case where the the police are too inept, reckless, and overly-aggressive to do their jobs without bringing pain and suffering to the citizens they swore an oath to protect.
A metro Atlanta woman has filed a federal lawsuit against multiple law enforcement agencies, alleging a that a wrongful and unlawful raid was enacted upon her home. According to Atlanta News First, Cathy George claims that her Sandy Springs, Ga., condominium was stormed on October 24, 2023, by deputies from the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office along with members of the U.S. Marshals Service. Authorities conducted the raid in an effort to locate Joshua Smiley, a fugitive who had been placed on the U.S. Marshals’ 15 Most Wanted list in June 2023 for alleged connections to a homicide in Alabama and a federal bond violation in Indiana. However, George’s attorneys claim that a critical error undercut the entire operation—Smiley had already been arrested in Indiana prior to the raid on George’s home.
George maintains that she had no connection whatsoever to Smiley. She says she had never met him, had no relationship with him, and had no reason to be targeted by DCSO or U.S. Marshals. Despite this, officers allegedly entered her home, detained her for roughly 20 minutes, and repeatedly questioned her about Smiley’s whereabouts, at times accusing her of hiding him. After showing officers photographs of her two sons, they realized that they had f***ed up and left, with her house in complete disarray no further explanation…