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Title: $3.6 Million Awarded In Flash-Bang Grenade Maiming Of Baby Bou Bou
Source:
Information Liberation
URL Source: http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=54217
Published: Feb 29, 2016
Author: Asa Jay
Post Date: 2016-02-29 17:16:13 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 6191
Comments: 37
The parents of a baby injured by a flash-bang grenade during a no-knock multi-agency task force raid in Georgia, will be awarded $3.6 million after a federal judge's decision on Friday.
19-month-old Bounkham Phonesavah (Baby Bou Bou) spent weeks in a burn unit after deputies with a Cornelia Police Department SWAT team threw a flash bang grenade directly into his crib, which exploded in his face, leaving him permanently disfigured.
The raid was conducted at around 3:00 am for a drug suspect that wasn't even in the house. By happen-stance, the Phonesavanh family was staying at the residence with relatives because their home in Wisconsin had just burned down.
"[The grenade] landed in his playpen and exploded on his pillow right in his face," Bou Bou's mother, Alecia Phonesavanh said at the time. "He's only a baby. He didn't deserve any of this."
Following the raid, the child was rushed to the Grady Memorial Hospital where he was put into a medically induced coma. In the wake of the incident, Habersham County attorneys said that "the board of commissioners concluded that it would be in violation of the law" to pay for Bou Bou's medical bills.
The Phonesavah family has since settled multiple lawsuits against the assorted departments involved in the raid however. A settlement was reached earlier this month with the City of Cornelia for $1 million, and in April, an agreement for $964,000 was arrived at with Habersham County.
On Friday, a federal judge approved payments totaling $1.65 million by Rabun and Stephens Counties – bringing the entire amount awarded to the family to around $3.6 million.
"We have worked diligently with our co-counsel to obtain the best possible result for Baby Bou Bou and his family," Attorney Mawuli Davis said. "What we achieved will not fix what happened or take away the nightmares, but we hope it helps them move forward as a family."
The only officer that faced any charges as a result of the incident was twenty-nine-year-old Nikki Autry – a special agent of the Mountain Judicial Circuit Criminal Investigation and Suppression Team (NCIS).
She was indicted by a federal grand jury in July for providing false information in a search warrant affidavit and providing the same false information to obtain an arrest warrant that ultimately led to the raid.
Prosecutors had said that Autry knew the informant she relied on wasn't a reliable source and didn't buy drugs from anyone inside the house, but gave the affidavit to the judge anyway who issued the no-knock warrant.
Autry was charged with four counts of civil rights violations for willfully depriving the occupants of the residence of their right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by an officer and "knowingly depriving [the] right to be free from arrest without probable cause."
Although her actions directly led to Fourth Amendment violations that resulted in Bou Bou's injuries, the grand jury declined to hold Autry responsible in December after her attorneys argued that she became the scapegoat for other officers' errors in the case.
Prosecutors didn't agree, but said they respected the jury's decision.
"If there had never been a search warrant Bou Bou would've never been injured," Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill McKinnon said at the time. "There's a direct causation."
Baby Bou Bou is still recovering from his injuries, has difficulty swallowing, and requires additional surgeries, according to Attorney Davis.
"He's got a painful road ahead," Davis said. "The whole family, they still struggle with the trauma of what they went through, and every medical procedure is a reminder." (1 image)
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 35.
#2. To: Deckard (#0)
And by the time Baby Boo Boo turns 18, there will be no money left. By the way, the Grand Jury in this case "strongly hinted that they felt the family was to blame": "The evidence shows the children were in danger from the moment they moved into the residence and the parents and extended family had some degree of knowledge concerning family members involved in criminal activity that came in and out of the residence."
If a cop put a bullet in your head. There would be mass celebrations. I bet roscoe would be laughing about it.
I bet A K A Stone would break out a bottle of hand lotion.
I bet you're banned in the near future.
Ooooh! What did he do? Did he say that another poster should be shot in the head? Or a grenade placed in his mouth? Well, if he did then he should be banned. There's no place for talk like that on this forum.
Here is what I understand from the story. An officer threw a grenade into a house with a baby and killed the baby. That is wrong. I'm saying it would have been more just for the baby to live and for the cop to have been shot instead since he threw the grenade where a innocent baby was at. When instead they could have waited and arrested the people who needed arrested when they went to the gas station. Your hateful response about a dead baby made me think. It made me think what if you were over there collecting the rent from your property. What if the grenade landed in your mouth instead of killing the baby. If that happened Roscoe would be cheering it on. He would say you shouldn't have been over at that house. Even though you were there to kick them out for not paying the rent and bringing drugs into the neighborhood.
The baby in this case wasn't killed, but seriously injured with facial burns. Children have been killed in such raids though. In one, very similar to this case, an officer's weapon discharged and killed a child sleeping on a couch next to her grandmother. The office blamed the grandmother for grabbing the weapon, which she denied doing. Perhaps you are thinking of that one. It's as though the grandmother should have expected this SWAT team dressed in all black in the middle of the night. But that's another story.
To many of these stories. They get confusing.
Sadly true. The militarization of police just since the 70's, perhaps beginning with the SWAT tv show which first cast that image to the public, has been dramatic. In fact, I think in the case I cited, a film crew was with the police to film the event for TV. I suspect that may have encouraged the police to "play the part" by acting extra tough, contributing to the danger of the situation. I could be recalling a different incident though.
There are no replies to Comment # 35. End Trace Mode for Comment # 35.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest"The parents of a baby injured by a flash-bang grenade during a no-knock multi-agency task force raid in Georgia, will be awarded $3.6 million"
#11. To: misterwhite (#2)
And by the time Baby Boo Boo turns 18, there will be no money left.
#22. To: A K A Stone (#11)
I bet roscoe would be laughing about it.
#26. To: Roscoe (#22)
#30. To: A K A Stone (#26)
"I bet you're banned in the near future."
#31. To: misterwhite (#30)
Ooooh! What did he do? Did he say that another poster should be shot in the head? Or a grenade placed in his mouth?
#33. To: A K A Stone (#31)
An officer threw a grenade into a house with a baby and killed the baby.
#34. To: Pinguinite (#33)
The baby in this case wasn't killed, but seriously injured with facial burns.
#35. To: A K A Stone (#34)
To many of these stories.
Replies to Comment # 35.
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