SWAT Assault on Home Ruled Unreasonable By JACK BOUBOUSHIAN

5.8.15

Courthouse News Service: "That the threats might have come from a person (or persons) inside the Milan home who might moreover be armed and dangerous was enough to make the police decide to have the house searched by the department's SWAT team forthwith, though, to repeat, the threatening messages could instead have emanated from outside the house because of the open network," Posner said. (Emphasis in original.)
The next day, the police confirmed that Murray was indeed responsible, and asked him politely to present himself at police headquarters.
"The police department's kid-gloves treatment of Murray is in startling contrast to their flash-bang assault on Mrs. Milan's home," Posner said.
Posner noted that Milan's daughter looked much younger than 18 on the video of the search.
"She is so small, frail, utterly harmless looking, and completely unresisting that the sight of her being led away in handcuffs is disturbing. All that the SWAT officer had to do was take her by the hand and lead her out of the house, which was rapidly filling with smoke from the flash bangs; there was no conceivable reason to handcuff her," the judge said.
The fact that the entire SWAT team was white, while Milan and her daughter are black, "cannot have helped race relations in Evansville," the opinion added.