Flash grenades are a tool created to help military special forces rescue hostages. As the name indicates, they create powerful bursts of light and create an ear splitting “bang” meant to incapacitate and stun people. They were designed almost 40 years ago, but to this date local police departments are not trained properly to use flash grenades. Even though most law enforcement agencies have them in their arsenal.
There is no national standard for training that dictates when flashbangs can be used by police.
The National Tactical Officers Association, the trade group for SWAT teams, strongly advises that untrained officers not be allowed to use flashbangs, and the NTOA offers a training course available to precincts that can afford it. Similarly, most Flashbang manufacturing companies also offer courses in the use of the devices. But, ProPublica found, the lack of uniformly enforced standards is still a big problem.
David Pearson, who runs flashbang training sessions for the trade group, said in an interview that he urges caution. “Flashbangs do have their place,” he said, “but I don’t think it’s on every mission or in every room.”
In 2009, police in Atlanta responding to an anonymous tip identifying a “brown skinned black man” with “a small quantity of a green leafy substance” stormed the Laurel Park apartment complex after throwing a flashbang through the window.
Treneshia Dukes, who was sleeping in the apartment at the time of the raid, quickly saw that her skin was falling off of her arm.
“I just started crying and I’m praying like, ‘I’m not going to die like this, this is not how I want to die,’” she later testified.
The powder inside flashbangs burns hotter than molten lava, which caused Dukes second degree burns across her body.
Suspect Jason Ward immediately surrendered to the police, who, after using three flashbangs in the raid, found that he possessed 1/10th of an ounce (2.83 grams) of marijuana. Dukes filed a formal complaint with the Clayton County Police Department, but the internal investigators found the police did nothing wrong.
Dukes’ attorney Mario Williams explained that flashbang training for Clayton County police had stopped three years prior to the raid of her home.
ProPublica found the flashbang manufacturers’ training manual, which focuses as much on deploying the devices as on anticipating legal defenses, advises that “sound policy, documented training, and looking before you throw a device are the best defenses against civil or criminal claims.”
In May, Bou Bou Phonesavanh, a 19-month-old baby, was nearly killed by a flashbang during a drug raid in Georgia.
— Dan Sanchez (@DanSanchezV) June 20, 2014
The Habersham County special response unit was looking for Bou Bou’s older cousin, who allegedly sold methamphetamine to an informant, when they raided the family’s apartment.
A flashbang fell into Bou Bou’s crib and blew a hole in his face. The young child was put into a medically induced coma for a month and the family incurred over $1.6 million dollars in medical bills.
His mother, Alecia Phonesavanh, told ProPublica that he often wakes up at night screaming. “It almost seems like he’s remembering what happened,” she said.
In October, a Habersham County grand jury declined to indict the officers involved. “Some of what contributed to this tragedy can be attributed to well-intentioned people getting in too big a hurry,” the grand jury wrote in its findings. They suggested better training and restricting warrants would remedy situations like this.
The Phonesavanh family plans on filing a civil suit against the officers for medical bills.
