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Incidents
From: ragnard@apk.net (Ragnar Danneskjold)
Date: Sat, 24 Jun 1995 12:09:15 -0400
Last night at 11:00 PM the big story in Cleveland, Ohio was the siege at a house in Parma (about 10 miles Southwest of Cleveland). At that time all that was known was that ATF attempted to serve a search warrant on a 23 year old man who lived with his parents. When the agents tried to serve the warrant the man slammed the door on their face. The BATF only had one choice, call in the SWAT teams.
The TV crews in the field had to broadcast in the dark because the ATF and Parma SWAT teams turned off power and ordered them to kill the lights in the area. The local talking heads speculated that the young man was holding his parents hostage, had a stockpile of illegal automatic weapons and had threatened BATF agents with weapons.
One local talking head, Ted Henry of ABC affiliate WEWS Channel 5, went as far as saying "well he must have quite a stockpile of weapons for the ATF to serve a search warrant."
The siege lasted all night. Over 60 officers from the BATF, Parma and local communities spent the night with their weapons trained on the house. They tried bullhorns, inserting a hostage negotiation phone, inserting optics, and all the other common tactics one would expect. They never made contact with the young man.
This morning at around 6:30 AM, a BATF dynamic entry team (if you've seen the pictures of the teams at Waco you know what these guys look like) went into the house backed up by the Parma SWAT team. The team did not have to break down the door because they were able to get the keys from the young man's parents (OOPs, I guess they really were not hostages afterall).
After the BATF team secured the house they realized that no one was home (OOPs, I guess there wasn't really a standoff after all). One of the local talking heads guessed that this 23 year old desperado walked out a back door that was blocked from view by a wooden privacy fence. The talking head did not venture a guess as to why the team of four agents (I am assuming that there were four and not just two because of statements made this morning by the BATF) who originally went to the house did not secure the back door when they felt it necessary to call in the guys in black body armor.
They BATF searched the house today but would not comment on what they found. The talking heads did mention that they did not see the BATF emerge carrying anything from the house (OOPs, maybe there wasn't a stockpile of illegal automatic weapons after all). No one knows if the young man is considered a fugitive because the BATF is not issuing anymore comments.
One final note, after the house was secured but before the search a BATF spokesman explained a couple of interesting points. First they were not serving an arrest warrant, only a search warrant, so the press should not expect any arrests. Second, the first two agents who approached the house and had the door slammed in their face did not have the warrant with them; the other two agents were somewhere else with the warrant (I assume, perhaps wrongly, that these agents were at the scene but who knows.). Third, the spokesman said that the agents were suprised the by man's reaction because this was just a routine search.
(Right. A routine search of someones home, without a warrant, effected at 6:00pm on a Friday night so that if they find something they can keep the guy in lockup all weekend before you have to take him before a magistrate.)
"They're not heavily armed jackbooted thugs... they're heavily armed jackbooted clowns."
"They should issue these guys clown noses, rainbow wigs and big red floppy shoes."
--- a friend commenting on the BATF
From: ragnard@apk.net (Ragnar Danneskjold)
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 18:03:57 -400
I have some more information that was not available when I made my original post.
(1) The BATF did not have a warrant when the went to the house the first time. The BATF asked to search the house and the occupant refused to let them in. Some reports say that he slammed the door in their face, others say he simply refused to allow them in without a warrant.
(2) The BATF was able to secure a sealed (i.e. secret) search warrant from Parma Municipal Court within a two hours of their initial contact with the occupant.
(3) The BATF came back with their own "dynamic entry team" and the Parma SWAT Team. The BATF never approached the house until the next morning. Once they secured the warrant they ordered the occupant of the house to come out using a bull horn. They later tried phones but since no one was home no one answered.
(4) As of today the warrant is still sealed, no one has been arrested, the BATF will not tell the occupant of the house or the media what they were looking for, and the BATF is no longer making any comments.
(5) Some of the neighbors who had their power turned off are angry about the spoiled food. There may be some fireworks at the next city council meeting but since no one is dead it is really not a very big story.
Question: If I invoke my Fourth Amendment rights should I expect the police to return with a warrant *and* a squad of men with machine guns and body armor?
HEADLINE: ATF finds home is empty after siege in Parma
BY: MICHAEL K. MCINTRYE
PARMA - After trying in vain through the night to contact a man suspected of barricading himself inside his Parma home, federal agents entered shortly after dawn yesterday and found no on there.
Agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco and Firearms said they were being extra cautious in executing a search warrant at the house on Stratford Drive. They said that while neighbors may have been inconvenienced, it is more important that no one was injured.
On Friday evening, agents, who had been investigating the man for what sources said were firearms charges, approached his home and asked if they could search it.
The man told then he had to contains his two dogs first, then slammed the door on the agents, said ATF spokesman Pat Berarducci.
Agents called for backup and sought a warrant through Parma Municipal Court. During this time, authorities believe, the man fled his home, probably through a back door. A large wooden fence concealed agents view of the back yard.
Berarducci would not identify the man, but neighbors said he was 23 and lived in the house with his parents. He has not been charged and agents were not looking for him yesterday, Berarducci said.
Berarducci said that he could not discuss what the agents were searching for, or what they found, because the warrant was sealed. About a dozen neighbors on Stratford and Salisbury were evacuated from their homes.
Five families were provided lodging at the Holiday Inn in Berea and others stayed with friends or relatives. Electricity was cut off to a number of nearby homes, and news crews were forbidden to use lights.
After the warrant arrived at the house, Berarducci said, agents tried to make contact with the man by calling him on the phone and with a bullhorn rather than enter the home.
Its kind of damned if you do and damned if you dont. Berarducci said. If you kick in the door at night and have to shoot someone, then where are you at?
Authorities acknowledged that they were mindful during the ordeal of other incidents in which law enforcement agencies drew fire for their actions. The ATF was criticized for the way it handled the siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas in 1993. Four ATF agents and 85 members of the Branch Davidian sect were killed.
Brunswick police have been criticized for their handling of a 45-hour siege on March 31. John M. Lekan shot and wounded three police officers and later killed his 9-year-old son and himself.
A police officer kicked through Lekans door while investigating a weapons complaint and was shot. Later, police used a vehicle to batter Lekans home while he was barricaded inside with the child.
They dont need any more bad press, so theyre doing it as gingerly as they can, Steve Worthington, a Parma police spokesman, told the neighbors who inquired about the authorities strategy.
Berarducci said agents were able to take a cautious approach because there were no hostages and no threats were made. It was wiser not to force entry because there is great danger involved, given that much of what ATF investigates is weaponry and explosives.
"A prudent person wouldn't run through that door. Nobody's life was in danger," he said. "And the evidence we were looking for wasn't going anywhere. If it was here when we got here, it was going to be here when we got in."
Police stopped their efforts to communicate at about 3 a.m. and decided to wait until daybreak.
The man's parents, who had been out earlier in the evening and returned to find ATF agents and Parma and Parma Heights police at their home, assist the authorities. At one point the mans father used the bullhorn and pleaded for this son to come out of the house. The parents gave agents the keys to the front door and about 6:30 a.m., six agents entered the house.
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