Georgia Grand Jury Rejects Criminal Charges Against Drug Warriors Who Burned and Mutilated a Toddler

Today a grand jury in Habersham County, Georgia,

rejected criminal charges against the police officers who
planned and executed a horribly botched
drug raid that left a toddler critically injured last May. The
grand jury faulted the task force that carried out the raid, which
included Cornelia police officers and Habersham County
sheriff’s deputies, for a “hurried and sloppy” investigation. But
the jurors concluded that the team’s negligence, which put
19-month-old Bounkham “Bou Bou” Phonesavanh in the hospital for a
month after a flashbang grenade exploded in his crib, did not
amount to a crime.

In their presentment, the jurors said the “zeal to hold
[drug dealers] accountable…must not override cautious and patient
judgment.” They suggested such zeal leads to unnecessarily
aggressive tactics that increase the likelihood of injury. “We
recommend that whenever reasonably possible, suspects be arrested
away from a home when doing so can be accomplished without extra
risk to law enforcement and to citizens,” they wrote.

At the same time, the jurors expressed sympathy for the officers
who participated in the raid:

Rather than seeing unfeeling or uncaring robots, what has not
been seen before by others and talked or written about is that
these individuals are suffering as well. We have seen and heard
genuine regret and sadness on the part of the law enforcement
officers involved, and we think is it fair and appropriate to point
out that they are human beings as well.

I’m sure the cops feel bad about burning and mutilating a little
boy, but that does not absolve them of responsibility for their

reckless behavior. The early-morning, no-knock SWAT raid was
aimed at an alleged meth dealer who no longer lived in the house,
where Bou Bou and his family, including three sisters, were staying
with relatives after a fire destroyed their home in Wisconsin.
Although the aggressive tactics were supposedly justified by an
expectation of violence, no weapons (or drugs) were found in the
house, and the suspect was unarmed when he was arrested later that
day at a different location. Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell
and Cornelia Police Chief Rick Darby said their officers would not
have used a flashbang if they knew children were living in the
house they attacked. But even the most rudimentary surveillance
would have revealed that fact.

“One might argue that the grand jury is speaking out of both
sides of its mouth,” Philip Holloway, a criminal defense attorney
and former Cobb County prosecutor,
told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “On the one
hand, the presentment speaks in terms of criminal negligence by the
task force, including severely deficient supervision. Yet on the
other hand, they elected not to recommend any criminal charges.”
Holloway added that “if an ordinary citizen were to act with
the reckless disregard described by this grand jury, there can be
little doubt that criminal charges would be filed.”

A federal investigation of the raid is continuing, and the
Phonesavanhs are expected to file a civil suit, especially since
Habersham County
reneged on Terrell’s
promise to cover Bou Bou’s medical expenses.