ATLANTA — The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case of an Atlanta family who says the Federal Bureau of Investigation mistakenly raided their home.
Channel 2 investigative reporter Ashli Lincoln has been following Trina Martin and her family’s fight against the federal government.
“Finally our case is being taken seriously,” Martin said.
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In 2017, a flash-bang grenade woke up Martin, her son Gabe Watson and her partner Toi Cliatt at their southwest Atlanta home. What they thought was a robbery, turned out to be an FBI raid.
“And I see about four weapons pointed directly at my head, and I’m just like, what is all this?” Cliatt previously told Channel 2 Action News.
“They ran in my room pointing guns at my face,” said Watson, who was 7 years old at the time.
It wasn’t until an agent double-checked the mailbox numbers that the FBI realized it was the wrong home.
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“I heard the officers run out, hop in their vehicles, run to the next house, the correct house, and you just hear it all over again,” Martin said.
Martin and her family said the FBI never returned their phone calls or compensated them for damage to the home and their mental health, even though there is a law designed to do just that: the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The family filed a lawsuit that was tossed out by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled the lawsuit wasn’t allowed under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Now the highest court in the U.S. will hear their case, possibly as soon as April.
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“I am so happy and filled with gratitude for our case to be seen and recognized,” Martin told Lincoln. “When something like this happens whether it’s intentional or by mistake, it shatters that sense of safety that we all have.”
Martin’s attorney Patrick Jaicomo said they anticipate arguments in the case to be held in April.
“When you’re dealing with the Supreme Court, any statements made by another branch of the government are going to move the needle for the court,” Jaicomo said. “There was nothing discriminatory about this or racial about this, it was complete negligence.”
The FBI said it couldn’t comment on pending litigation. The Supreme Court has fast-tracked Martin’s case.