SWAT Team Reportedly Throws Flash Bang, Burns Toddler During No-Knock Raid
Bounkham Phonesavanh, a nineteen month old toddler, is in a medically-induced coma after reportedly suffering severe burns when a SWAT team from the Habersham County Sheriff's Office in Georgia threw a flash grenade into his home during a no-knock raid apparently over a drug purchase made there earlier in the week. Sheriff Joey Terrell said officers asked the informant who directed them to the house whether there were any children and were told there weren't so there was nothing they could have done to prevent it. Via Access North Georgia:
Terrell said both the district attorney and Georgia Bureau of Investigation [GBI] have said there was no wrongdoing on the SRT's part.
"I've talked to the D.A., I've talked to the GBI," Terrell said. "I've given them the whole information and they say there's nothing else we can do. There's nothing to investigate, there's nothing to look at. Given the information given, GBI's SWAT team would have done the exact same thing—they'd have used the exact same scenario to enter the house."
Whether the sheriff's office should be executing no-knock warrants on homes because they can find informants to buy drugs from there seems like something Terrell, the GBI or the DA could "look at." Unless the social media activists launch the right hash tag to end the war on drugs, Bounkham Phonesavanh is unlikely to be its last child victim. No one thinks of the children when cops get to play commando.
UPDATE: Commenter sarcasmic points out that the Daily Mail reports it was unclear whether drugs were found in the house—which strongly suggests that they weren't.
