Since changing its policy last year, the Columbia Police Department has not conducted any dynamic entries so far in 2011.
Some policies regarding search warrants changed after the Feb. 11 raid of drug suspect Jonathan Whitworth’s home last year brought major scrutiny to the department’s dynamic entry practices.
According to data pulled from the Circuit Clerk’s Office by CPD spokeswoman Jill Wieneke, CPD issued a total of 91 search warrants in 2010. Of those, there were 25 narcotics search warrants.
The SWAT team was deployed on 10 of last year’s warrants. Five of those were narcotics-related, and five were for wanted persons. In two of the latter cases, the suspect surrendered before the dynamic entry occurred.
The number of search warrants issued so far this year is currently unavailable.
Wieneke said in 2011, the SWAT team has only been used for security detail for the February visit from Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and protests at Planned Parenthood in March as well as a public relations event earlier this month.
Attorney Dan Viets, former president of American Civil Liberties Union of Mid-Missouri, said this is a step in the right direction.
“Any time a person’s home is invaded, there is a potential, not only for the people in the home but for the police officers involved, to be seriously wounded or killed,” he said.
He said there have been many incidents in other communities where both police officers and civilians have been injured or killed during the execution of search warrants.
“It’s a miracle that we haven’t seen more injuries here in Columbia than we have,” Viets said.
Viets said he understands that it is CPD’s duty to enforce the law, but the question is how that law is enforced and the root of the problem is when officers use dynamic entries to go after marijuana suspects.
“I’d like to see them stop using search warrants for marijuana – period,” Viets said. “There’s no need to use search warrants in marijuana cases. There are other ways to enforce the law that don’t carry that potential for violence.”
CPD Capt. Brian Richenberger said policy changes after the Whitworth incident have certainly played a role in the decrease of dynamic entries, though it is not the only reason. Many factors go into the decision to use dynamic entries.
“We explore other alternatives to serving the dynamic entry search warrants,” Richenberger said.
In an informational memo to Police Chief Ken Burton, Richenberger said there is no specific formula in place to decide whether to use the SWAT team. Each situation is evaluated based on threat potential and difficulty level outside of ordinary police response tactics.
The document showed only one request for SWAT team use in a dynamic entry since February, and that request was denied. The entry would have been part of a homicide investigation and CPD decided against the request in part because the suspect was unaware of police surveillance and adequate personnel were in place.
“Just because we do a narcotics-related search warrant does not mean we use the SWAT team,” Wieneke said. “In fact, of those 25, only on five of them did we use the SWAT team.”
The reason for this, she said, is that a lot of times the search warrants are issued after police discover drugs while investigating a peace disturbance such as a loud party.