[url]www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0906raid.html[/url]

Acting on a bad tip, Cobb SWAT team
              bursts into home; officer's gun goes off

              By CRAIG SCHNEIDER
              Atlanta Journal-Constitution Staff Writer

              The Cobb County
              police thought they
              had a killer cornered
              Sunday and they didn't
              want to waste time.
              They didn't want to tip
              him off. They didn't
              want to endanger
              themselves or the
              public. And they didn't
              want him to get away.

              But the 3 a.m. raid -- in
              which police targeted
              the wrong man, and an
              officer fired his gun
              accidentally -- raises
              questions of how far police should go before bursting into people's lives.

              John Bailey was relaxing in his home Sunday when he suddenly found himself
              handcuffed, with guns pointed at his head and police combing through his
              apartment.

              He had just come home from a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert, and the evening was
              winding down at 3 a.m. The 41-year-old computer programmer was having
              some drinks with a friend when the knock on the door came, bringing with it
              the "scariest moment of my life."

              It had been a different evening for the Cobb County police. They had received a
              tip from a manager of Bailey's apartment complex. The woman said a man who
              rented an apartment matched a photo of a fugitive shown that evening on TV's
              "America's Most Wanted."

              Armed with a warrant, the police SWAT team descended on his red front door.
              Bailey had just put some fish and chips in the oven when the knock came.
              There were a handful of police officers, he recalled, looking like a military unit.
              They had rifles, night-vision goggles, helmets.

                                           The police barked orders at him. He
                                           was handcuffed and pushed around,
                                           he said. They were talking about
                                           somebody killing his father with a
                                           hammer. "And they were treating me
                                           like I was him," said Bailey.

                                           Unfortunately, they had the wrong
                                           man.

                                           Making matters worse, an officer's
                                           submachine gun went off
                                           inadvertently. The bullet shot through
                                           a metal closet door, through the
              bathroom wall, and put a hole in Bailey's deodorant stick before landing in the
              bathtub.

(continued)
              "It freaked me out," he said.

              No one was injured in Sunday's early morning raid on Bailey's apartment near
              Vinings. Police are reviewing the incident, and it is unknown whether any
              disciplinary action or procedural changes will result, said police spokesman
              Dana Pierce.

              When Cobb County police believe they know a fugitive's whereabouts, they say
              they must balance the desire to move fast to protect the public from a criminal,
              against the time needed to verify they've got the right man. If they have the
              right man, every minute may be critical. If they don't, they'll apologize.

              Gerry Weber, a legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union of
              Georgia, was critical of the raid. Police should have been more suspicious of a
              tip received from the airing of a television show, he said, and they should have
              taken greater pains to ensure the man in question was the man they wanted.

              Fugitive-chasing television shows create a furor to catch the criminals they
              profile, he said. "People want to be famous. They want to be the one who
              catches the guy on 'America's Most Wanted,' " he said.

              Bailey, who moved to the complex three months ago, said the police should
              have taken more time to obtain his name from the apartment manager. They
              could have checked his references on the lease. They could have checked his
              car tag. They could have talked to his neighbors or relatives.

              "They could have just looked at me through a pair of binoculars and seen I
              wasn't him," Bailey said.

              However, Pierce said the SWAT team acted quickly but not haphazardly.
              Stressing the fugitive was deemed armed and dangerous, he said, "You want
              to get to him as quickly as possible. What if we would have waited? A fugitive
              could then have injured or killed somebody else."

(continued)
              The phone tip came to police Saturday night, shortly after the program profiled
              James Detmer, a 44-year-old Kansas man who allegedly killed his father with
              the claw end of a hammer in Missouri. Days before, Detmer had fled after
              making bond on a charge that he tried to set a woman on fire with gasoline.

              By 2 a.m., the police had persuaded a judge to issue a warrant. Police took a
              photo of the wanted man to the apartment manager, who again said she
              recognized the fugitive. Both Detmer and Bailey are about 40 years old, and
              both are about 5-foot-10 and 240 pounds.

              Bailey was handcuffed, Pierce said, "to protect the officers and himself" until it
              could be determined he was not the fugitive.

              FBI spokesman Richard Kolco said such raids are routine, and he believes the
              Cobb police acted appropriately in choosing to go in.

              "Everybody was treated correctly with respect," he said. "If it doesn't work out,
              you just tell them, 'Thank you for your time.' It's worth it."

              On Wednesday, Bailey said his hands were still shaking. Any knock on his
              door drives up his blood pressure, he said. He is taking medicine for that, as
              well as to help him sleep.

              The bullets fired inside his home were especially unnerving.

              "If anybody was in that bathroom, they would have been shot," he said.

              He has hired a lawyer. Attorney Stephen P. Berne of Atlanta is demanding that
              an outside agency look into the raid. He noted that this is not the first time the
              Cobb County SWAT team has come under criticism. An independent report on
              a raid that resulted in the deaths of two SWAT members, was critical of the
              team's tactics.

              On Sunday, Berne said, police created a dangerous situation at Bailey's
              apartment.

              "He has a right to be safe in his own home."

Frankly, I don't see the point of your post.  The officers did their duty and got home safely to their families, which is all that matters in the end.  Anyone who would think or say otherwise is, clearly, a traitor to this great nation.

Yeah, it's all for the good of the country.  And sure, there was an AD, but at least it didn't go into the back of a child.  A-hole Imbroglio, who do you think you are?

Well, damnit! Don't you people understand? There wasn't any collateral damage done to show the civilians that they mean business!

Good thing he uses stick instead of aerosol.