The FBI mistakenly raided their Atlanta home. Now the Supreme Court will
hear their lawsuit
[April 28, 2025]
By SUDHIN THANAWALA and LINDSAY WHITEHURST
ATLANTA (AP) — Before dawn on Oct. 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 FBI agents did advance work and tried to find the right
house, making this raid fundamentally different from the no-knock,
warrantless raids that led Congress to act in the 1970s, the Justice
Department said in court filings starting under the Biden
administration.
In dismissing Martin's case, the 11th Circuit largely agreed with that
argument, saying courts can't second-guess police officers who make
“honest mistakes” in searches. 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.
Martin, 46, said she, her then-boyfriend, Toi Cliatt, and her son were
left traumatized.
“We’ll never be the same, mentally, emotionally, psychologically,” she
said Friday at the neat, stucco home that was raided. “Mentally, you can
suppress it, but you can’t really get over it.”
She and Cliatt pointed out where they were sleeping when the agents
broke in and the master bathroom closet where they hid.
Martin stopped coaching track because the starting pistol reminded her
of the flashbang grenade the agents set off. Cliatt, 54, said he
couldn’t sleep, forcing him to leave his truck driving job.
[to top of second column]
|
Trina Martin, left, and Toi Cliatt sit for a portrait inside the
home the FBI mistakenly raided in 2017, in Atlanta on Friday, April
25, 2025. (AP Photo/Sudhin Thanawala)
“The road is hypnotizing," he said of driving tired. "I became a
liability to my company.”
Martin said her son became extremely anxious, pulling threads out of
his clothes and peeling paint off walls.
Cliatt initially thought the raid was a burglary attempt, so he ran
toward the closet, where he kept a shotgun. Martin said her son
still expresses fear that she could have died had she confronted the
agents while armed.
“If the Federal Tort Claims Act provides a cause of action for
anything, it’s a wrong-house raid like the one the FBI conducted
here,” Martin's lawyers wrote in a brief to the Supreme Court.
Other U.S. appeals courts have interpreted the law more favorably
for victims of mistaken law enforcement raids, creating conflicting
legal standards that only the nation’s highest court can resolve,
they say. Public-interest groups across the ideological spectrum
have urged the Supreme Court to overturn the 11th Circuit ruling.
After breaking down the door to the house, a member of the FBI SWAT
team dragged Cliatt out of the closet and put him in handcuffs.
But one of the agents noticed he did not have the suspect's tattoos,
according to court documents. He asked for Cliatt's name and
address. Neither matched those of the suspect. The room went quiet
as agents realized they had raided the wrong house.
They uncuffed Cliatt and left for the correct house, where they
executed the warrant and arrested the man they were after.
The agent leading the raid returned later to apologize and leave a
business card with a supervisor's name. But the family received no
compensation from the government, not even for the damage to the
house, Cliatt said.
Martin said the most harrowing part of the raid was her son's cries.
“When you're not able to protect your child or at least fight to
protect your child, that's a feeling that no parent ever wants to
feel,” she said.
___
Whitehurst reported from Washington.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
