Around 6:30 p.m. on May 26, Brittany Shamily was at home with her children, including an infant, when police used a battering ram to bust in her front door. “What the hell is going on?” she screamed, terrified for herself and her family. “I got a three-month-old baby!”
…
While the family was detained outside, the SWAT team “ransacked” their house, the lawsuit says. One SWAT team member punched a basketball-sized hole in the drywall. Another broke through a drop ceiling. They turned over drawers and left what had been an orderly house in disarray.
After this had gone on for more than half an hour, the AirPods were located — on the street outside the family’s home.
It later came to light that one of Shamily and Briscoe’s daughters saw what was likely the stolen Charger careening through their neighborhood a little before 7 a.m. that day. (The vehicle later crashed on the 1700 block of Foley Drive, about six miles from the family’s home.) It stands to reason that someone in the Charger tossed a pair of stolen AirPods onto the street in the vicinity of the quiet house police later busted into and ransacked.
The family, represented by Schock and Erich Vieth, is suing for damages stemming from embarrassment, unreasonable use of force, loss of liberty, and other factors. The lawsuit notes that neither Shamily or Briscoe had been in any trouble with the law for at least a dozen years prior to the incident. “There was no probable cause for the search warrant and had the affidavit contained complete information, the state court judge would not have approved the warrant,” the suit allege
They won’t. Police have qualified immunity. At best taxpayers pony up, but even that is unlikely.
This is both true and awful - we, the tax payers, just paid an inept SWAT Team to cosplay doing what is essentially a military operation, to the cost of either one completely innocent family getting their house and lives fucked over or all of us paying a bunch of money to fix what they broke.
What a fucking system. St. Louis is dangerous, but not so much that they need to fucking rush in a SWAT Team without good intel. I hope these bastards at least get their toys and privileges taken away… but bringing charges against anyone responsible - I have no hopes that will happen.