WHEN SWAT RAIDS GO WRONG

A sampling of SWAT mishaps shows what can, and often does, go wrong.

Last Sept. 13 in Modesto, Calif., a SWAT team burst into the home of
11-year-old Alberto Sepulveda to serve a drug trafficking warrant on his
father. While rounding up his family, officers ordered Alberto to lie on
the floor, face down, which the boy did. Seconds later, an officer
accidentally fired a shotgun that was trained on Alberto's back, killing him.

On Sept. 29, 1999, Denver SWAT officers killed 45-year-old Mexican
immigrant Ismael Mena in what turned out to be a drug raid on the wrong
house. The city paid the Mena family $400,000 to avoid a wrongful death
lawsuit.

On Aug. 9, 1999, 20 SWAT officers from the El Monte, Calif., Police
Department raided the home of 64-year-old Mario Paz. While his wife, Maria,
screamed, "My husband is sick! He's an old man!" a policeman shot Paz twice
in the back. The five remaining members of his family living at the house
later said they thought they were being robbed.

On Feb. 13, 1999, at 1:25 a.m. in Osawatomie, Kan., police set off a
flash-bang grenade before bursting into the home of Willie Heard, looking
for cocaine. The explosion startled Heard's 16-year-old daughter, who
screamed. Heard, in his bedroom and thinking his daughter was in danger,
grabbed a .22 bolt-action rifle. When police smashed into the bedroom they
saw Heard with the rifle and shot him dead. The entire incident lasted 11
seconds.

On Oct. 14, 1999, at 1:30 a.m. in Albuquerque, N.M., Larry Harper -
despondent and unemployed - called his brother and said he was going to
commit suicide. The brother alerted police, and nine SWAT team members were
dispatched to a picnic area, where Harper was sitting with a gun. After
chasing Harper into a stand of juniper bushes, a sniper shot him dead after
SWAT officers denied arriving family members the chance to talk to him. The
city later settled a lawsuit for $200,000. The city dismantled the SWAT
team after the incident.

On July 12, 1998, acting on a single tip that Pedro Oregon Navarro was
dealing drugs, a team of Houston officers charged into the apartment of the
22-year-old, who picked up a handgun. The officers unleashed some 30 shots,
hitting Navarro 12 times, nine times in the back. No drugs were found.

On July 11, 1997, 64-year-old farm worker Ramon Gallardo of Dinuba, Calif.,
was shot 13 to 15 times when police raided his home looking for a gun
allegedly used in a murder. No gun was found, and a federal jury later
awarded Gallardo's family $6 million. The SWAT team was disbanded after the
incident.

On March 13, 1996, in Oxnard, Calif., the deployment of a flash-bang
grenade during a drug raid created such confusion that SWAT team commander
Daniel Christian killed Officer James Jensen Jr. with three shotgun blasts
to his side. The city later settled a lawsuit filed by Jensen's family for
$3.5 million.

On Dec. 16, 1996, Ralph Garrison of Albuquerque was awakened by the sounds
of windows being smashed in at the house next door, which he owned. He
dialed 911 and urged a dispatcher to send police because men were
destroying his rental house. Eventually he said, "I've got my gun and I'm
going to shoot the son of a bitch," and went to his back doorway with a .22
pistol. The vandals, it turned out, were members of the Secret Service, the
Customs Service and local police, including two SWAT teams, looking for
counterfeit driver's licenses, birth certificates and checks. The 911 tape
ends with the sound of gunfire as police killed Garrison with AF-15
military assault rifles. Garrison's dog was also killed.

On Oct. 12, 1995, at 2:30 a.m., Stephen Medford Shively, a college student
in Topeka, Kan., was alarmed when several men battered down his door. He
called 911, then grabbed a gun and fired through the door, killing an
officer. Officers returned fire from the other side of the door, wounding
Shively. A Kansas jury acquitted him of murder charges, saying that he
acted in self-defense, and an appeals court concluded that officers used
misleading information to obtain a warrant.

On April 15, 1995, a Dodge County team raided the trailer of Scott Bryant,
a 29-year-old technical college student who was living in Beaver Dam with
his 8-year-old son. As the first officer to smash through the door was
placing Bryant on a couch to be handcuffed, Detective Robert Neuman rushed
in and delivered a fatal bullet to Bryant's chest. A small amount of
marijuana was found in the trailer. While no charges were ever filed
against the detective, the county paid $950,000 to settle a federal civil
rights lawsuit filed by Bryant's family.

On Aug. 9, 1994, in Riverside County, Calif., 87-year-old Donald Harrison
and his 77-year-old wife, Elsie, were asleep in their mobile home when
deputies smashed in looking for a drug lab. Donald died of a heart attack
four days later. It turned out that police had the wrong place, despite a
detailed description of the suspect home, which was a different color than
the Harrisons' trailer.