Supreme Court revives lawsuit from Atlanta family whose home was wrongly raided by the FBI
The opinion comes after a predawn 2017 raid in which an armed FBI SWAT team smashed in a front door and set off a flashbang grenade, pointing guns at a couple and terrifying a 7-year-old boy before realizing they were in the wrong house.
The FBI team quickly apologized and left for the right place, with the team leader later saying that his personal GPS device had led him to the wrong address.
The couple, Trina Martin and Toi Cliatt, filed a lawsuit against the federal government accusing the agents of assault and battery, false arrest and other violations. But lower courts tossed out the case. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found they couldn't sue over what amounted to an honest mistake. The appeals court also found the lawsuit was barred under a provision of the Constitution known as the Supremacy Clause, which says federal laws take precedence over state laws.
The family's lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that Congress clearly allowed for lawsuits like theirs after a pair of similar headline-making raids on wrong houses in 1974. The 11th Circuit was also ruling differently than other courts around the country, they said.
Public interest groups from across the political spectrum urged the justices to overturn the ruling, saying its reasoning would severely narrow the legal path for people to sue the federal government in law-enforcement accountability cases.
___
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Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at Amanuel Gebremedhin Birhane And Samuel Getachew, The Associated Press
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Journeys fraught with danger The families they leave behind know that there are high odds of misfortune. Boats are often overcrowded, unable to withstand rough seas. Once on dry land, there are other dangers. Migrants are vulnerable, with few resources or protection, making them easy prey for human traffickers and kidnappers. Senait Tadesse says that her 27-year-old daughter made it to Yemen, only to be held captive by kidnappers who communicated with Tadesse through Facebook, demanding a US$ 6,000 ransom to release her only child. Tadesse said in an interview with The Associated Press in the capital, Addis Ababa, that she sold her car and all her jewelry to raise the cash and deposited the money in an Ethiopian bank account. But the kidnappers demanded more. She sold all her belongings; they still wanted more. Not knowing what else to do, she went to the police, armed with the local bank account number that the kidnappers had been using. Meanwhile, she was on Facebook, trying to get news of her daughter. Eventually, a post from a survivor confirmed that Tadesse's daughter had been killed. To date, no arrests have been made. Driven by desperation Although Ethiopia has been relatively stable since the war in the country's Tigray region ended in 2022, youth unemployment is high and there are still pockets of unrest. 'Many young people no longer see a future for themselves within a nation that does not prioritize their needs,' explained Yared Hailemariam, an Ethiopian human rights advocate based in Addis Ababa. 'The cause of this migration is lack of economic opportunities and growing conflicts. Young people are faced with a choice of either taking up arms to fight in endless conflicts, or providing for their families.' The war in Tigray was the reason why Nigus Yosef never finished school. When the conflict started in 2020, he was in 7th Grade, and he dropped out to join the Tigray armed forces. When the ceasefire was signed in 2022, he came back home, but couldn't find a job. After three years, he was desperate. Residents in the region say that traffickers seize on that desperation, and that their networks extend even into remote areas and rural villages. Eden Shumiye was just 13 when she left Adi Qeyih with Yosef and his friends. Her parents say that she was preyed on by people smugglers during the town's public market day, and that they convinced her to leave with the group. Her parents heard nothing from her until one of the other migrants called them when they reached Wuha Limat, near the Ethiopia-Djibouti border. The news left them sick with worry. After the boat capsized, a relative of one of the survivors managed to send a voice message to them from Saudi Arabia via the messaging app Imo, confirming that Eden's dead body had been recovered. Of the six young people who left Adi Qeyih, only two survived. 'Her mother is heartbroken,' Eden's father, Shumiye Hadush, told The Associated Press. 'The pain is truly overwhelming.' Ethiopia issues a warning In response to the recent tragedy, the Ethiopian government issued a statement warning citizens 'not to take the illegal route,' and to 'avoid the services of traffickers at all cost,' while urging people to 'pursue legal avenues for securing opportunities.' But Girmachew Adugna, a migration scholar specializing in Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, points out that legal migration channels are slow and time-consuming. 'Passports are hard to obtain due to rising costs,' he says. 'Young people often have little or no access to legal migration pathways, which leads them to migrate through irregular means.' More than 1.1 million Ethiopians were classified as migrants who left their home country and were living abroad in 2024, up from about 200,000 recorded in 2010, according to United Nations figures. In spite of Yemen's civil war, the number of migrants arriving there has tripled from 27,000 in 2021 to 90,000 last year, the U.N. International Organization for Migration, or IOM, said last month. To reach Yemen, migrants are taken by smugglers on often dangerous, overcrowded boats across the Red Sea or Gulf of Aden. The IOM said at least 1,860 people have died or disappeared along the route, including 480 who drowned. 'Our youth are dying because of this dangerous migration,' says Eden Shumiye's father Hadush. 'They fall victim to the cruelty of traffickers. When will this tragedy come to an end?' ___ The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
