The FBI raided their Atlanta everyone incorrectly. Now the Supreme Court will hear their lawsuit

ATLANTA (AP) – Before dawn on Oct. 18, 2017, FBI agents broke the front door of Trina Martin's Atlanta home and rushed into her bedroom, pointing the gun at her and her then-boyfriend as her 7-year-old son screamed for his mom from another room.

Martin, not comforting his son, shrunk incredibly what she said was eternity. But within a few minutes, the ordeal was over. Agents realize they have the wrong house.

Martin's lawyers will ask the justices in the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to resume her 2019 lawsuit against the U.S. government, accusing of assault and assault, false arrests and other illegal acts.

A federal judge in Atlanta dismissed the lawsuit in 2022, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld the decision last year. The Supreme Court agreed to bring the matter in January.

The key question before the justices is under what circumstances can people sue the federal government to make law enforcement accountable. Martin's lawyers said that in 1974, Congress clearly allowed the lawsuits after a pair of law enforcement attacks occurred on the wrong house, and those who blocked them left little money for families like her.

FBI Atlanta spokesman Tony Thomas said in an email that the agency was unable to comment on pending lawsuits. But the government's lawyers argued in the Martin case that the court should not “guess” the law enforcement ruling. The Justice Department said in a Biden administration court paper that FBI agents did work ahead of time and tried to find the right House, which was fundamentally different from an ignorant unassured attack that led to action by Congress in the 1970s.

The 11th Circuit largely agreed with the argument in dismissing Martin’s case, saying the court could not make a second guessing police officer who made a “honest mistake” in the search. The agent who led the raid said his personal GP led him to the wrong place. The FBI is looking for a suspected gang member.

Martin, 46, said she, then-boyfriend Toi Cliatt and her son were traumatized.

“We're never psychologically, emotionally, psychologically the same,” she said Friday at the neat, plaster house of the attack. “Mentally, you can suppress it, but you can't really overcome it.”

She and Cliatt point out where they sleep when agents break in, and where they hide in the master bathroom closet.

Martin stopped the coaching track because the pistol reminded her of the agent's outbreak of Flashbang grenades. Cliatt, 54, said he couldn't fall asleep and forced him to leave his truck driving job.

“This road is shocking,” he said. “My responsibility for the company becomes responsibility.”

Martin said her son became very anxious, pulling the thread out of the clothes and peeling the paint off the walls.

Cliatt initially thought the raid was a burglary attempt, so he ran to the closet where he kept a shotgun. Martin said her son still expressed concern that she could die if she was face to face with agents while armed.

“If the Federal Tort Claims Act provides a cause of action for anything, it's like the wrong attack done here by the FBI,” Martin's lawyer wrote in a brief introduction to the Supreme Court.

They say other U.S. courts of appeals have interpreted the law more favorably to victims of wrongful law enforcement attacks, thus forming a contradictory legal standard that can only be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. Public interest groups throughout the ideological field urged the Supreme Court to overturn the 11th Circuit ruling.

After breaking the door to the house, a member of the FBI SWAT team dragged Criat out of the closet and handcuffed him.

However, one of the agents noticed that he did not have a tattoo of the suspect. He asked Cliatt for his name and address. Neither matches the suspects. The room became quiet when the agents realized they had raided the wrong house.

They canceled Cliatt, left the right house, where they executed the warrant and arrested the man they followed.

The agent who led the raid returned later to apologize and left a business card with the name of the supervisor. But the family received no government compensation, and did not even cause damage to the House, Criat said.

Martin said the most painful part of the raid was the crying of her son.

“It’s what parents want to feel when you can’t protect your child or at least fight to protect it,” she said.

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Whitehurst reported from Washington.