Kansas City Police Set Family's Drapes Ablaze in 'No Knock' Raid

Kansas City police didn't have a "no knock" warrant, something they'd have to specifically request and receive from a judge. But that didn't stop them from raiding the home of JeTaun Jones without so much as a knock on the door, setting the house's drapes on fire and startling the residents -- including four women between the ages of 2 and 84 who were not named in the warrant. And while they ultimately realized they'd made a mistake, the department has yet to apologize.

On the defensive, police have stated that they did announce their presence -- though they admit they didn’t knock. In fact, when a 24 year old woman held keys up as if to indicate she would unlock the storm door for them, police instead shouted at her to get down and pushed past her to break through the door -- before throwing a flash-grenade into the home.

Now, after keeping fairly quiet about the whole incident for weeks, police officials are launching an internal investigation into the matter. But as with any internal investigation, the public needs to pressure Kansas City police to commit to sharing their findings and conducting their investigation in a transparent manner.

Despite what one might assume from their tactics, police weren’t looking for an armed and dangerous suspect -- they were looking for a cell phone. The phone had originally belonged to a murder victim but had been most recently been used by a young man, the brother of JeTaun Jones. To make the raid even more questionable, the young man wasn’t living at the house in South Kansas City, but was actually in police custody at the time of the raid.

When the police threw their flash-grenade, it rolled to the back of the house and caught the drapes on fire. They then allegedly stormed in, cuffing the 24 year old and a 68 year old woman, and even tried to get Jones’ 84 year old bedridden mother up and out of the bed. One can only imagine how the 2 year old child felt at the sight of the SWAT team cuffing her family while their home's curtains burned.

So, did the cops tear apart the house in search of this highly dangerous phone? No. They soon realized their error and left without searching. Oddly enough, they would find the phone at another location where Jones’ brother was actually living before his arrest.

The Supreme Court has ruled that people should be given the opportunity to open their door for police even when there’s a warrant -- and it seems the women in this home weren’t given that chance. But even if the department sees the error of its ways, if history is any indication we will see an informal apology and things will carry on as usual.

As we continue to see and report on the stories of cops gone Rambo, using militaristic raids to go after everyone from marijuana to cell phone users, we have to wonder when enough will be enough. Will lawmakers and officials ever take the steps necessary to prevent the wrongdoings or will they continue to only worry about crafting a better apology the next time around?

A highly questionable no-knock raid with a young child in the home and no indications that a dangerous suspect was even there brings to mind the story of Detroit’s Aiyana Jones, killed when officers there stormed her family home. Police administrators across the country must reign in this sort of gung-ho SWAT mentality they’ve created before the divide between the cops and the people they are supposed to protect widens further.

While opening an investigation into the raid is a step in the right direction, a lack of media attention on this case thus far is troublesome. Don't allow the investigation to take place behind closed doors -- join others here at Change.org in demanding the Kansas City police share their findings with the public and use this raid as a teaching point, to prevent future such incidents from happening again.

Photo Credit: banspy