Fifty-seven-year-old Alberta Spruill was getting ready for work on May 16 when a police raiding party in search of a drug dealer broke down the door of her Harlem apartment, tossed in a “flash bang” stun grenade and handcuffed her to a chair. After realizing their mistake—the man they wanted lived in the same building but had been arrested by a different police unit four days earlier—the police uncuffed Ms. Spruill, checked her vital signs and sent her to the Emergency Room. Spruill, however, who suffered from a heart condition, died on the way to the hospital.

Unfortunately, this “tragic mistake” of police bursting into a house, apprehending the residents and only after the fact asking questions is merely one more example in the latest spate of no-knock raids. Various news stories over the years document the fact that police have on numerous occasions battered down doors, entered the wrong houses and killed innocent people. These no-knock raids illustrate just how little protection Americans have against being subjected to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons and property.

In Boston, 13 heavily-armed policemen in black fatigues smashed into the apartment of Acelynne Williams, a 75-year-old retired African-American preacher. Supposedly, they had been working off an anonymous tip that four Jamaican drug dealers lived somewhere in the apartment building. Williams died of a heart attack from the “shock and awe” of being visited by commando-like cops.

Sometimes, even when confronted with obvious errors, law enforcement officials proceed anyway. For example, after having his house raided, Glen Williamson of Louisiana pointed out to the arresting officer that the search warrant actually said “Glen Williams,” not “Williamson.” In response, the officer added “on” to the name on the warrant and arrested Williamson.

A law-abiding citizen might wonder what’s wrong with these scenarios. After all, the police are trying to do their job—uphold the law and put law-breakers behind bars. But there’s been a drastic change in the role of law enforcement officials in our society, and we would do well to remember the lessons of our founding fathers.

The desire to protect the American people from unreasonable searches and seizures was so great that the framers of our Constitution actually made it one of 10 amendments added as part of the Bill of Rights. The early colonists knew what it was like to have law enforcement officials and soldiers breaking down doors, holding them at gunpoint, searching their possessions and wreaking havoc in their homes. It was these searches that in large part fueled the fury that gave rise to the American Revolution.

And now we’ve come full circle. Whereas the reigning philosophy once was that “a man’s house was his castle,” it has since become “the king’s keys unlock all doors.” Today, few individuals seem to bat an eye when the courts and our government leaders insist that no-knock raids and sneak-and-peek searches are for the good of the American people.

Carried out in the name of the war against drugs and the war against terrorism, these searches have succeeded in convincing many law officials that they have a right to burst through a closed door. In fact, all it takes for police officers to obtain a no-knock warrant allowing them to enter your home without announcing themselves is to convince a judge that they suspect criminal activity is taking place, that evidence might be destroyed or disposed of or that an announcement could result in violence. Yet these are clearly the actions of a society sliding inevitably toward a police state.

Advocates of these searches—including U. S. Attorney General John Ashcroft—insist that the searches are lawful and valid because the police have a warrant to back them up. But warrants seem to be a dime a dozen these days, rubber-stamped by judges too busy to ask the probing questions they should of police officers.

Yet there is something to be said for the Fourth Amendment’s historic provision for the “knock and announce” protocol that gave rise to the clichéd “open up, it’s the police” scene used in every cop movie. It allows you, the property owner, a chance to comply with the law. It gives you time to get your clothes on, come to the door and identify yourself. And in instances where it may be a case of mistaken identity or address, it gives everyone a chance to get their facts straight before someone gets hurt needlessly.

Why do we see this shift in attitude toward a police-state mentality happening? Two reasons come to mind. First, for individuals who are entrusted with upholding and defending the law, police officers are sadly lacking in their understanding of the Constitution, which is the law of the land. Every police officer should be required to take a stringent test on the Bill of Rights before donning a badge.

Second, too often police officers are encouraged to embrace an “us against them” mindset in which they are the guardians of the law and everyone else is a potential law-breaker. But in America, there’s not supposed to be an “us against them” system when it comes to law enforcement officials because the police are supposed to act as public servants to the people. After all, under the American system of justice, we are all presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Incidents like these used to outrage people, but they barely make headlines anymore. Unwilling to learn about their rights, the American people have continued to relinquish them to the so-called “guardians of the peace.” So it is somewhat understandable that police officers think they have tacit approval to act in such a way.

Yet to paraphrase James Madison, one of the greatest minds in American history, if all men were angels, no government would be necessary. But the fact is that all men are not angels. That’s why the founding fathers drafted the Constitution as a contract to hold the government accountable in respecting the rights of the people—and vice versa.

So if we’re serious about safeguarding our rights, then we need to focus on the damage being done to our freedoms here at home by the very people who are supposed to be protecting them. The ends—in this case, fighting crime—don’t justify the means, no-knock raids and other outrageous violations of our constitutionally protected freedoms. By selling out, whether we’re doing so to win the war on terrorism or the war on drugs, we’re destroying the one thing that stands between us and a police state—the U. S. Constitution. As journalist Joel Miller recognizes:

[N]o-knock raids give an implicit middle finger to the Constitution. As many innocent victims suffer because of unannounced, dynamic entries, none suffer quite so badly as the Fourth Amendment, which clearly defends “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures….” It’s a little hard to be secure in anything when a dozen unannounced police officers bust in, acquaint your cheek with the carpet, and screw a gun in your ear.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute.

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