Thursday, May 20, 1999
Police deny shooting in raid
Hamilton SWAT team stormed home
BY JANICE MORSE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
HAMILTON — Police here deny firing shots into an occupied residence as they searched it during a drug bust early Monday, said Capt. Joseph Murray, acting Hamilton police chief.
“There were no shots fired whatsoever into that residence,” Capt. Murray said.
Police on Monday had declined comment, but Capt. Murray said federal authorities, who have been working with local officers on a drug sweep, were expected to release more information at a news conference today.
Mary and Mark Biroschak said officers stormed into their Vine Street home — where they and their granddaughters, ages 3 and 6, were asleep — around 5:30 a.m. Monday. Other neighbors said they heard police use a bullhorn to warn residents, but the Biroschaks said they heard nothing. They surmise a room air-conditioner's noise drowned out the bullhorn's warning.
Pointing to shattered windows and a broken aquarium, the Biroschaks said they believe officers fired guns into their home. But Capt. Murray said the glass was broken by other means.
If officers had fired inside, a slug would have been lodged into a wall, he said — and the Biroschaks admit they found no such damage.
The city's Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officers, who worked with federal authorities, would never have done what the Biroschaks allege, Capt. Murray said.
“The SWAT unit here is a highly trained unit that really prevents the loss of life,” he said, pointing out that none of the occupants was hurt, although two officers accidentally hurt themselves.
Capt. Murray declined to reveal the injured officers' names, but said one suffered a severe cut to his arm when he fell onto a shard of window glass, and the other sprained a knee while climbing over a fence that collapsed. Both officers were expected to make a full recovery.
The only shots fired were those aimed at a 135-pound bull mastiff that jumped to the ground from a second-story window, Capt. Murray said. After being momentarily stunned by his leap, the dog began moving toward officers in a fenced-in area of the front yard, “and he had to be taken out,” Capt. Murray said. The dog, named Mack, was killed.
As for police searching for Mrs. Biroschak's son, Joe Blankenship, 27, who was already in jail, Capt. Murray said, “We would still go in anyway for the items we were going after.”
Those items were unspecified in a search warrant given to the family. Scott Greenwood, a constitutional rights lawyer, said the search warrant appeared to be invalid because of its vagueness.
Capt. Murray said he was unable to comment about that.
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