NAMELESS
AND SHAMELESS
HUFFINGTON
10.06.13
MORE THAN SIX YEARS LATER,
HOWEVER, THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
INVOLVED STILL WON’T TELL THE WOMEN
THE NAMES OF THE OFFICERS AND
AGENTS WHO RAIDED THEIR HOME —
A KEY PIECE OF INFORMATION
NECESSARY IN LAWSUITS LIKE THIS ONE.
encourage the use of aggressive
police tactics, the Burleys’ frustrations with the court system
punctuate just how difficult it can
be for innocent victims, who become collateral damage in the war
against drugs, to get redress for
the harm done to them.
ACCORDING TO THE BURLEYS’
accounts, the officers who raided
their home were clad in black.
Some wore balaclava masks or face
shields that hid all but their eyes.
Others pulled their hats down low
to shield their identities. They had
also obscured their names and
badge numbers. Once the Burleys’ house had been thoroughly
searched, both women asked the
officers for their names. After
holding an impromptu meeting,
the officers told the Burleys that
they wouldn’t divulge any infor-
mation that could identify them
individually. Instead, they told the
women that they had just been
raided by “Team 11.” The women
weren’t given a search warrant.
“Team 11 appears to have been
a name given just for that operation,” Stanley Okoli, an attorney
for the Burleys, told The Huffington Post. “Or just a name to confuse them. It wasn’t a designation
that gave them any meaningful way
to obtain the officers’ identities.”
Joe Key, a retired police officer with 24 years of experience,
founded the SWAT team in Baltimore, and now consults for police agencies and testifies as an
expert witness. He criticized the
idea of officers refusing to identify
themselves. “Accountability of the
police officer to the public is absolute,” he told The Huffington Post.
“If there are undercover officers
whose identities need to be protected — and I don’t know that
that was the case here — then you