The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a petition from a family whose home was wrongly raided by a SWAT team, despite that law enforcement were found to have violated the victims' Fourth Amendment rights.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have granted the petition, falling two votes short of the Court's threshold.
In March 2019, Lt. Mike Lewis led police to Karen Jimerson and James Parks' home in Lancaster*, Texas, ultimately ordering SWAT to "break and rake" the house, shattering all the front windows, the shards from which reportedly rained down on their sleeping children. They also set off a flash grenade and broke down the door, guns drawn. But the target structure, a suspected methamphetamine stash house, was located two doors down. Police would not realize until after holding the Jimerson-Parks family—including a half-naked Karen, who had just gotten out of the bath—at gunpoint.
