In May, Team Emancipate met with attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice to urge them to open an investigation into the Raleigh Police Department. RPD’s ongoing practices violate the civil rights of residents on a regular basis. As the USDOJ Civil Rights Division considers its options with RPD, we promised to follow up regularly with deeper information about different aspects of RPD’s misconduct. This week, we sent a follow up letter with more detailed information about RPD’s abuse of “Quick Knock” warrants.
Even though RPD has banned “No Knock” warrants, depositions with officers in the Special Enforcement Unit reveal that they abuse regular warrants to enter private homes within 0-3 seconds. This gives residents no chance to realize what is happening, get dressed, or open the door voluntarily before it is blown off the hinges.
This is dangerous and unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has ruled that 15-20 seconds is a reasonable amount of time to wait between knocking and entering a private home on a drug warrant. But video evidence reveals that RPD actually enters private homes within 0-3 seconds, and they only plan to wait 3-5 seconds:
Officer Twiddy testified the following:
Q: And what is the maximum time that you can recall planning?
A: A maximum time? I don’t know. Like I said, three to five seconds sounds pretty average. I don’t know a max off the top of my head.
Q: Have you ever made a plan to wait 20 seconds? On a drug warrant?
A: I don’t think so.
Q: What about 15 seconds?
A: On a drug warrant, I don’t think so.
Q: How about 10?
A: I don’t know.
Q: You don’t recall?
A: Correct.
Q: It could have happened?
A: Maybe.
Q: You look dubious.
Check out the letter here and Ring camera footage of a home entry here.