Habibo Jama v. United States

MEMORANDUM

Plaintiff-Appellant Habibo A. Jama appeals from an order of the district court granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment with respect to Jama’s claim that her Fourth Amendment rights were violated when members of the Seattle Police Department (“SPD”) SWAT team, executing a valid search warrant, forcibly entered her apartment with guns drawn, 8-10 seconds after knocking and announcing their presence and purpose, and detained the five occupants for at most 15-20 minutes.

When police officers executing a search warrant knock and announce, “there [is] no fixed minimum amount of time [they] must wait before entering....” United States v. Granville, 222 F.3d 1214, 1218 (9th Cir.2000). Instead, whether such an entry was reasonable depends upon “the totality of circumstances in a given case.” United States v. Banks, 540 U.S. 31, 36 , 124 S.Ct. 521 , 157 L.Ed.2d 343 (2003). The circumstances here are as follows: On the day that Jama’s apartment was searched, agents of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), in conjunction with local law enforcement officers, including the SPD SWAT team, were executing 17 search warrants simultaneously. The warrant to…