(27 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Atlanta – 25 April 2025
1. Atlanta residents Trina Martin and Toi Cliatt stand in front of home that was raided
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Trina Martin, Atlanta resident whose home was raided by FBI in 2017: ++STARTS ON SHOT 1 AND PARTIALLY OVERLAID BY SHOTS 3 TO 6++
"I was the first one to wake up because I heard a really big bang, and it woke me up and I was thinking, what is going on? And from there, I told Toi, I said, ‘Toi, I think somebody is breaking into our house.’ And he was kind of groggy because he just got in himself. So when they threw in a flash bomb grenade saying… You just see the lights and hear the sound and at that time, it startled him as well. So he popped up, we both popped up, and as I’m running towards the bedroom, I was going across the hall to get my son, Toi grabbed me to put me into our bathroom, I mean our master closet. I was in a corner of the closet and it’s an agent in front of me with a gun pointing to my face with a bright light. And I was just disoriented and confused because we don’t do anything. And I did not believe they were a SWAT."
3. Pan of front stairs of home
4. Pan of front hallway
5. Toi stands in master closet
6. Street sign in front of home
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Toi Cliatt, Atlanta resident whose home was raided by FBI in 2017: ++STARTS ON SHOT 6 AND PARTIALLY OVERLAID BY SHOT 8++
"They said, ‘Well, what’s your address?’ And so I told him the address and just immediately it just kind of got really quiet. Just all the calamity just ceased. And I was able to hear the lead officer whisper to another officer. I hear him say we got to go up the street and you know, basically we were at the wrong house."
8. Various of home
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Trina Martin, Atlanta resident whose home was raided by FBI in 2017: ++OVERLAID BY SHOT 8++
"I want to see change in the way they execute their no knock warrants, and possibly just throw them out completely. Justice accountability. "
STORYLINE:
Before dawn on October 18, 2017, FBI agents broke down the front door of Trina Martin’s Atlanta home, stormed into her bedroom and pointed guns at her and her then-boyfriend as her 7-year-old son screamed for his mom from another room.
Martin, blocked from comforting her son, cowered in disbelief for what she said felt like an eternity. But within minutes, the ordeal was over. The agents realized they had the wrong house.
On Tuesday, an attorney for Martin will go before the U.S. Supreme Court to ask the justices to reinstate her 2019 lawsuit against the U.S. government accusing the agents of assault and battery, false arrest and other violations.
A federal judge in Atlanta dismissed the suit in 2022 and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision last year.
The Supreme Court agreed in January to take up the matter.
The key issue before the justices is under what circumstances people can sue the federal government in an effort to hold law enforcement accountable.
Martin’s attorneys say Congress clearly allowed for those lawsuits in 1974, after a pair of law enforcement raids on wrong houses made headlines, and blocking them would leave little recourse for families like her.
FBI Atlanta spokesperson Tony Thomas said in an email the agency can’t comment on pending litigation.
But lawyers for the government argued in Martin’s case that courts shouldn’t be “second-guessing” law enforcement decisions.
The agent who led the raid said his personal GPS led him to the wrong place. The FBI was looking for a suspected gang member a few houses away.
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