Meet
59-year-old David Hooks, the latest drug raid fatality
By Radley Balko October 6 Phillip
Smith at the Drug War Chronicle sums up the news reports detailing the latest casualty in the never-ending U.S. war
on drugs.
A Georgia SWAT team shot and killed an armed homeowner
during a September 24 drug raid sparked by the word of a self-confessed meth
addict and burglar who had robbed the property the previous day. No drugs were
found. David Hooks, 59, becomes the 34th person to die in US domestic drug law
enforcement operations so far this year.
According to WMAZ TV 13, Laurens County sheriff’s deputies with the drug task force
and special response team (SWAT team) conducted a no-knock search on Hooks’
home in East Dublin on the evening of the 24th. When the raiders burst through
the back door of the residence, they encountered Hooks’ carrying a shotgun.
Multiple deputies opened fire, shooting [and] killing Hooks.
According to his family, Hooks was not a drug user or
seller, but was a successful businessman who ran a construction company that,
among other things, did work on US military bases. Hooks had passed background
checks and had a security clearance.
The search warrant to raid Hooks’ home came about after a
local meth addict named Rodney Garrett came onto the property two nights
earlier and stole one of Hooks’ vehicles. Garrett claimed that before he stole
the vehicle, he broke into another vehicle on the property and stole a plastic
bag. Garrett claimed he thought the bag contained money, but when he later
examined it and discovered it contained 20 grams of meth and a digital scale,
he “became scared for his safety” and turned himself in to the sheriff’s
office.
(Hooks’ family, however, said that Garrett had been
identified as the burglar and a warrant issued for his arrest the day after the
burglary. He was arrested the following day; the raid happened that same
night.)
Garrett’s claims were the primary basis for the search
warrant. But investigators also claimed they were familiar with the address
from a 2009 investigation in which a suspect claimed he had supplied ounces of
meth to Hooks, who resold it. Nothing apparently ever came of that
investigation, but the five-year-old uncorroborated tip made it into the search
warrant application.
And
it was enough to get a search warrant from a compliant magistrate. Hooks family
attorney Mitchell Shook said that even though the warrant was not a no-knock
warrant, the Laurens County SWAT team did not announce its presence, but just
broke down the back door of the residence.
Mitchell Shook, an attorney for Hooks’s family, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that deputies spent 44 hours searching Hooks’s home for
drugs — yet they found nothing. The attorney also told the Macon Telegraph that the shooting didn’t happen the way the police say it
did.
According to the family attorney’s account, Hooks was asleep
when armed deputies arrived at his house at 1184 Ga. 319 just before 11 p.m.
Sept. 24. His wife, Teresa, was upstairs in her craft room when she heard a car
drive fast up the driveway, and she looked out the window.
“She saw several men all in black and camo with hoods on,”
Shook said. “She ran downstairs, woke David and said, ‘The burglars are back.’
”
Hooks retrieved a gun and headed out of the bedroom as the
officers broke down the back door, Shook said. He said Hooks was not wounded at
the door but behind a wall in his house.
“They may have seen him with a weapon, but it appears at
that point in time it was chaos,” Shook said. “They were shooting everywhere.
There’s a lot more to it than law enforcement has reported.”
He believes deputies fired 16 to 18 shots from multiple guns
and assault rifles. Shook also questioned the wisdom of serving the warrant so
late at night.
The
[Georgia Bureau of Investigation] is investigating the shooting, as is
customary when officers are involved in wounding or killing a suspect.
The police are doing what they usually do after one of these
raids goes wrong: They’re bunkering down.
Laurens
County Sheriff Bill Harrell indicated last week his department would not be
releasing any information beyond the initial news release. He also did not
immediately return Wednesday’s inquiries concerning the attorney’s allegations.
So add another body to the
pile. Four years ago, I described another fatality at the hands of a Georgia anti-drug task force — the death of pastor Jonathan Ayers. Eight years ago, a narcotics team from Atlanta killed 92-year-old Kathryn
Johnston during a drug raid on her home, then attempted to plant drugs in her
basement to cover its mistake. The team had been relying on a tip from an
informant and did no corroborating investigation. In 2010, a Polk County, Ga.,
drug raid team put a 76-year-old woman in intensive care with congestive heart
failure after raiding the wrong house. In 2008, a Gwinnett County tactical team
terrified a couple and a baby when they raided the wrong home. In 2000, a
Georgia police raid team shot and killed Lynette Gayle Jackson when she held up a gun as they broke into her home. Jackson
had recently been robbed. In 2006, Deputy Joseph Whitehead was shot and killed during a surprise raid on a suspected drug house. The men
who shot him, Antron Fair and Damon Jolly, argued that they thought they were
being robbed by a gang. They later pleaded guilty to murder to avoid the death
penalty. And, of course, last May, 19-month-old Bounkham Phonesavanh was critically wounded when officers deployed a flash grenade in his crib during a
drug raid on his home. That raid, too, lacked much in the way of investigation.
Meanwhile, last week, a heavily armed team of Bartow County,
Ga., cops and the Georgia governor’s anti-drug task force raided a man’s home after mistaking the okra in his garden for
marijuana. No one was harmed, but the
gardener, Dwayne Perry, described the cops as “armed to the gills” and told the Journal-Constitution, “The more I thought about it, what could have happened?
Anything could have happened.” He’s right. Just ask the family of David Hooks.
That’s all just Georgia. Other things that have triggered
raids after police mistook them for pot: tomatoes (many times), loose leaf tea,
sunflowers, fish, elderberry bushes, kenaf plants, hibiscus, ragweed, yellow
bell peppers, daisies, the scent of a skunk, the scent of guinea pigs and a
plastic plant purchased for a pet lizard’s terrarium.
And, of course, people are dying outside of Georgia, too.
Like Jason Westcott in May. In fact, by my count, 11 people have been killed in
drug raids this year — nine civilians and two cops.
Catherine Bernard invited you to her event
Rally for Justice for David Hooks Saturday, December 13 at
2:00pm Laurens County Courthouse in Dublin, Georgia
[https://www.facebook.com/n/?events%2F326993190826226%2F&ref=6&ref_notif_type=plan_user_invited&aref=258209877&medium=email&mid=ab8cad8G2238f8faGf63f855G6bG93a&bcode=1.1414450602.Abl5oFcXCGxGMYk-&n_m=ntl%40mindspring.com]
Thank you to all who attended our October 13th rally and promised to keep
demanding justice for David Hooks and other innocent people killed by law
enforcement.
We promised that we would continue to seek justice for David, and so we will return to the steps of the Laurens County courthouse on Saturday, December 13th to show support for the Hooks family and demand answers from law enforcement. Speakers will provide updates on the case and share similar tragedies from around the state.
On September 23rd, David Hooks was killed in his own home by Laurens County Sheriff's deputies. The drug task force was conducting a SWAT raid based on a tip provided by the man who had burglarized Mr. Hooks' property a few ...
We promised that we would continue to seek justice for David, and so we will return to the steps of the Laurens County courthouse on Saturday, December 13th to show support for the Hooks family and demand answers from law enforcement. Speakers will provide updates on the case and share similar tragedies from around the state.
On September 23rd, David Hooks was killed in his own home by Laurens County Sheriff's deputies. The drug task force was conducting a SWAT raid based on a tip provided by the man who had burglarized Mr. Hooks' property a few ...
Thank you to all who attended our October 13th rally and promised to keep
demanding justice for David Hooks and other innocent people killed by law
enforcement.
We promised that we would continue to seek justice for David, and so we will return to the steps of the Laurens County courthouse on Saturday, December 13th to show support for the Hooks family and demand answers from law enforcement. Speakers will provide updates on the case and share similar tragedies from around the state.
On September 23rd, David Hooks was killed in his own home by Laurens County Sheriff's deputies. The drug task force was conducting a SWAT raid based on a tip provided by the man who had burglarized Mr. Hooks' property a few
We promised that we would continue to seek justice for David, and so we will return to the steps of the Laurens County courthouse on Saturday, December 13th to show support for the Hooks family and demand answers from law enforcement. Speakers will provide updates on the case and share similar tragedies from around the state.
On September 23rd, David Hooks was killed in his own home by Laurens County Sheriff's deputies. The drug task force was conducting a SWAT raid based on a tip provided by the man who had burglarized Mr. Hooks' property a few
days earlier. This knock-and-announce warrant was served
at 11 p.m. When Mr. Hooks' wife heard vehicles and saw men in camouflage and
hoods in their yard, she woke her husband, who took his shotgun to investigate
the intruders. Without even raising or pointing his gun, he was shot by
multiple members of the Laurens County drug task force/special response team.
Join concerned citizens from across Georgia as we seek justice for David Hooks and other victims of law enforcement militarization and over*criminalization. These dangerous and unconstitutional policies make us all less safe.
Join concerned citizens from across Georgia as we seek justice for David Hooks and other victims of law enforcement militarization and over*criminalization. These dangerous and unconstitutional policies make us all less safe.
Comment
Police need to use warrants and wear their uniforms,
otherwise they will pay out $millions for screw-ups like this. Citizens need to
know how they can protect themselves from home invasion. Not protecting our
family is not an option. Citizens are the first responders to these threats and
need to load their guns and call 911.
Police are usually not the first responders; they usually arrive to
later to tape off the crime scene.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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