Alecia and Bounkham Phonesavanh never imagined their family would be at the center of a controversy over the militarization of police. But that’s exactly where they found themselves when their toddler was seriously injured by a SWAT team, also leaving them with a $1 million medical bill they have no hope of paying.
“They messed up,” Alecia Phonesavanh told ABC News' "20/20." “They had a faulty search warrant. They raided the wrong house.”
In the spring of 2014, the Phonesavanh’s home in Janesville, Wisconsin, was destroyed by fire. Homeless with four young children, they packed one of their last remaining possessions – their minivan – and drove 850 miles to the home of Bounkham’s sister in Cornelia, Georgia.
The family crowded into a former garage converted into a bedroom: parents Bounkham and Alecia, 7-year-old Emma, 5-year-old Mali, 3-year-old Charlie and 18-month-old Bounkham Jr., known as “Bou Bou.” It was a tight squeeze but only temporary. After two months the family had found a new house in Wisconsin and was planning to return home.
At approximately 2 a.m. May 28, the family awakened to a blinding flash and loud explosion in their bedroom. A Special Response Team (aka SWAT team) from the Habersham County Sheriff's Office burst unannounced into the bedroom where they were sleeping. According to police reports, Habersham Deputy Charles Long threw a “flash-bang” grenade – a diversionary device used by police and military – into the room. It landed in Bou Bou’s pack-and-play.
“Bou Bou started screaming,” recalls Alecia Phonesavanh. “I immediately went to grab him.”
But Alecia says Habersham Deputy Jason Stribling picked up the child before she could reach him. “I kept telling him, ‘Just give me my son. He's scared. He needs me. The officer wouldn't. And then he walked out of the room with [Bou Bou] and I didn't see him again.”
What they didn’t realize at the time was that the blast from the flash-bang grenade severely burned Bou Bou’s face and torso and collapsed his left lung. Alecia says the officers wouldn’t allow her to see her child before he was whisked away in an ambulance.
“I asked if he got hurt. And they said, ‘No, your son is fine. He has not sustained any serious injury,” Alecia Phonesavanh remembers. “They ended up telling us that he had lost a tooth.”
But her husband became alarmed after seeing a pool of blood and the condition of the crib. “Burnt marks on the bottom of the crib where he sleep[s],” recalls Bounkham Phonesavanh. “And the pillow blown apart.”
The town should pay for hiring these bumbling idiots and arming them.
ReplyDeleteThis family, as natural people, need to personally sue those SWAT personnel. Demand their BOND NUMBERS and sue them.
ReplyDeleteHave all names and addresses of the cops involved been 'leaked'?
ReplyDeleteNo, 'suing' does nothing to stop this criminality. Only when corrupt police and the corrupt judiciary are afraid to leave home then this stuff will stop. If the governor won't step in and correct this situation then he should be made very afraid to leave his home.
ReplyDeleteYou're an idiot!!!
ReplyDeleteWhy is he an idiot? Dazzle us with your Mensa intellect and wisdom! Simple fact is that the comment has merit, the city hired those bumbling incompetent fools, dangerous fools!
ReplyDeleteThe town didn't hire these thugs to throw flash-bang grenades in cribs, and the town doesn't have any money of their own, only taxpayer's money. The solution is to require all workers in the criminal justice system -- and I mean everyone who is in any position to harm a citizen in any way, even district attorneys, judges, and prison guards -- to carry personal professional malpractice insurance, paid out of their pockets, not the taxpayers. When there is a reason to sue someone, you sue the individual, not the taxpayers who had no control over the hiring or the actions of the individual. When the insurance policy premiums become too high for individuals known to the insurance companies to be dangerous or corrupt, they will be drummed out of the profession without any further intervention by anyone.
ReplyDeleteMake the taxpayers pay for this stupid mistake, and they might be a little more involved in the decisions made by the city, like employing military tactics against American civilians. Otherwise I'm sure it will be more of the same.
ReplyDeleteBait them fish hooks!!!
ReplyDeleteNow I understand the comment below that you are an idiot better. The taxpayers didn't throw the grenade, a dangerous cowboy cop did. If said cop finds his professional malpractice insurance policy premiums eating up half his salary, he'll quit being a cop. Guaranteed outcome -- no police union or chief of police will be able to shield him from the financial consequences of his actions. Turning over the monitoring of police performance to self-interested insurance companies will clear out bad cops in an astonishingly short time.
ReplyDeleteThe taxpayers are already paying for the stupid mistakes of police, but that hasn't changed anything yet because the taxpayer has no idea what percentage of his/her taxes pay for public liability insurance carried by the employing agency as a whole. This is what's called "asymmetric interests": The taxpayer doesn't know and so doesn't care; it doesn't cost the individual cops any more or less depending on how they behave so they don't care, and the police chiefs are covered by the publically-purchased policy so they don't care.
The solution is to make each and every employee working in the criminal justice system buy their own personal professional malpractice insurance policy so THEY get sued for what THEY did, so their insurance company will jack up their rates to impossible levels when they misbehave -- then they'll care.
A rather long winded supposition. I think it would be much easier to make the taxpayers pay for the incompetence of those they have armed. Aren't you one of the party constantly calling for more responsibility and accountability from the government? No, let's tie this up in courtrooms for decades. And as far as the baiter goes, it's good to see he has someone on his side. You two might have a lot in common.
ReplyDelete