Jury Rules Swat Team Not Responsible For Death

BALTIMORE — A U.S. District Court jury ruled Monday that a Baltimore County SWAT team is not liable for the death of a Dundalk woman shot during a 2005 drug raid of her family's row house.

Cheryl Noel, 44, was killed early Jan. 21, 2005, when a police team entered her house.

"They (the jury) believed the officers' version of events, and believing the officers' version led them to believe there had been no constitutional violation," Assistant Baltimore County Attorney Paul Mayhew said.

But Noel's family is "devastated" by the decision, according to their lawyer, Terrell Roberts III.

"There's no margin for error here. It really should be examined closely whether a SWAT team ought to be used in cases like this," the attorney said. "This was more of a military raid than it was a police execution of search warrant."

Mayhew pointed out that two of the Noels — Charles, 55, and the couple's son Matthew, 23 had violent criminal histories. The other two, Cheryl, and the other son, Jacob — had registered pistols.

Mayhew said police had gotten a warrant to search the Noel's home after they found marijuana and cocaine residue in the trash, and served the warrant with everyone's safety in mind.

"This isn't a terrorist organization we're running here," Mayhew said in his opening statement. "They're highly trained, dedicated and they put their lives on the line every day."

He said the tactical team had only fired shots three times in the past 30 years.
Roberts had argued that the SWAT team's tactics were unwarranted under the circumstances and unnecessarily resulted in the death of a woman who was trying to protect her family from what she thought were intruders.

Instead of knocking and identifying themselves, the officers used a battering ram to enter the home early and set off a flash-bang grenade to distract the house's occupants, shortly thereafter.

"Nobody could possibly understand that it was the police in that amount of time with that amount of noise," Roberts said Monday after the verdict.

The Noels' lawsuit, filed in August 2006, was against the officers involved and the county. According to the suit, Noel, fearing burglars had broken into her home, grabbed her handgun and pointed it at the floor. An officer kicked in the bedroom door and shot Noel three times, killing her, the suit alleged.

Roberts said an appeal will be considered.

"We're still laboring under the shock of it all right now," he said.