War on Drugs

Another Isolated Incident

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Gwinnett County, Georgia:

[Georgia Bureau of Investigation] spokesman John Bankhead said state agents along with Gwinnett and Hall County police narcotics officers had been keeping watch over a drug suspect's home at 4237 DeJohns Way for about three weeks. Officers thought they saw the suspect enter the duplex around 2 p.m. Tuesday and moved to arrest him, Bankhead said.

A no-knock search warrant had already been obtained from a judge — allowing law enforcement to enter the suspect's home without knocking or announcing their presence — because the duplex was in a known gang area, Bankhead said. However, the agents and officers mistakenly forced entry into a duplex adjacent to the suspect's home.

No one was home at that unit, Bankhead said. The agents also banged on the door of the other unit in the same duplex, startling residents inside. Within minutes, Bankhead said the officers figured out that they were at the wrong building.

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Jainet Rios, 25, a Home Depot supervisor, said she was at work when the officers came to her parents' home. She said her parents, her two sisters ages 18 and 19, and the 19-year-old's infant baby were terrified when drug investigators began yelling at them with their guns drawn. She said the incident especially shook up her mother, who suffers from bipolar disorder and was recently released from a psychiatric treatment facility.

It's the second wrong-door raid in Gwinnett County in two months.