Columbia, Missouri police sent a SWAT team to the home of Jonathan Whitworth and Brittany Montgomery on 11 February 2010 to serve a drug warrant.[1] Eight days earlier a confidential informant had told police Whitworth kept a large marijuana supply at home, and officers said they found marijuana residue in the family’s garbage.[1]
Officers fired seven rounds during the raid, killing the family’s pit bull; at least one bullet ricocheted and wounded the couple’s corgi.[1] Whitworth, Montgomery and their 7-year-old son were at home at the time.[1] Montgomery later wrote that she had been reading to her son when the officers came in and fired within seconds.[1]
Police found only a pipe, a grinder and a small amount of marijuana, enough for a misdemeanor possession charge.[2] Whitworth was arrested on marijuana possession and drug paraphernalia charges; the possession charge was later dropped and he pleaded guilty to paraphernalia, paying a $300 fine.[1][2]
Aftermath
The parents were also initially charged with child endangerment.[3] Police said they had not known a child lived in the home.[2] The SWAT team itself filmed the raid; after the Columbia Daily Tribune obtained and posted the video in May 2010 it passed half a million views within days and 1.2 million by July.[1][2]
The Whitworths sued twelve officers in September 2010 over the raid; a federal judge dismissed the suit in November 2011, finding little to support the complaint and the officers’ tactics proper.[3]
