PENDER COUNTY — A couple from nearby Willard filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court Wednesday after their home was raided and ransacked by the Pender and Lee county sheriffs’ offices last year.
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The home of Alisa Carr, 53, and Avery Marshall, 49, was bombarded by a SWAT team from both law enforcement agencies at 1 a.m. on April 10, 2024, while the engaged couple and their two kids were sleeping. Officers from Lee and Pender counties broke down doors, guns in hand, looking for someone who had allegedly committed car larceny, Joseph Clark Jr. However, no one in the home knew the man.
The Pender County couple and their attorneys believe law enforcement violated the Fourth Amendment, protecting against unreasonable searches and seizures, and the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment and North Carolina Constitution, which protects against “takings” of property without just compensation. The nonprofit public interest law firm Institute for Justice has adopted the case; IJ takes on cases of government overreach and constitutional rights violations pro-bono.
The lawsuit notes there are more than $11,000 in damages to Carr and Marshall’s home, not accounting for medical expenses or otherwise. The couple is seeking compensatory damages but no final number has been put forth.
Named defendants in the suit are several Lee County detectives — Sgt. J. Dylan Thomas, Cpt. Nazareth Hankins and John Does — and its sheriff, Brian Estes, and Pender County Sheriff, Alan Cutler. It also lists Pender County and Lee County government entities.
“I have no trust anymore in law enforcement,” Marshall said in an interview Tuesday, as he recounted the incident he and his family endured.
Port City Daily reached out to both Pender and Lee county sheriffs’ offices for a response to the lawsuit. Only Sheriff Alan Cutler responded (see full statement at end of article) and essentially ran down the events of the evening. He indicated no one was harmed in the raid, however, and Pender County Sheriff was called in to help Lee County on the “high risk search warrant service.”
Cutler then directed questions on the investigation to Lee County Sheriffs Office which did not respond by press.
The incident
The suit states the SWAT team entered the house by shattering the glass door and using flash-bang grenades, ordering the family to crawl and walk across broken glass before interrogating them and their children, aged 9 and 16.
Marshall told Port City Daily he thought at first someone was trying to break in. Upon the officers’ forceful entry — with Marshall only wearing his underpants — he felt a blow to his chest.
“I actually thought I was shot,” he said, explaining his reaction to the flash-bang grenade. “As I fell forward, the thing bounced off my chest, went halfway under the chair, exploded.”
It burned the furniture and carpet, according to Marshall.
Despite the confusion, Carr said at a press conference in front of the Alton Lennon federal courthouse in downtown Wilmington on Wednesday that Marshall did not grab his gun, though he keeps one loaded in the event of a home invasion.
“I thank God he was looking out for us because [Marshall] could have went and with one shot, we wouldn’t be here today,” she said.
Instead, Marshall complied with orders, he said. While on the ground, chest bare against broken shards, he motioned to get up when he saw deputies walk toward his son’s room.
“I see a cop coming to him with a gun pointed in his face and my instinct is to, you know, he’s getting ready to get shot,” Marshall said.
Upon trying to move, Marshall said the officer stepped his boot into Marshall’s back, right where his stitches were located from a surgery he had nine days before.
“They kept asking me if I knew this man; I was like, ‘I don’t know this man,’” Marshall said.
Carr, only in her nightgown, was instructed to come out of the bedroom with her hands up. She was scheduled for ankle surgery the following day and had trouble walking; upon asking officers for her shoes, she said they complied so she wouldn’t have to walk across the glass barefoot.
They interrogated her in the kitchen until she began complaining about not being able to breathe due to the fumes. A heart patient who had already suffered a heart attack before, Carr said her heart rate also escalated. Officers dismissed her concerns at first, but eventually she was carried off by ambulance to the hospital and treated for a panic attack.
The two children, also in their nightclothes, were outside being interrogated by police officers. They were adamant, according to Marshall, with law enforcement that they did not know Joseph Clark Jr. Yet, officers questioned them for roughly an hour before Marshall’s mother arrived to take them away.
Carr said the family is in therapy and she suffered another heart attack in the year since events unfolded. Marshall had to have another back surgery due to the incident and he has hearing issues now from the flash-bang grenades going off in close proximity. He said he already suffered from PTSD before, but this incident exacerbated it further.
The couple also hasn’t had the money to make permanent repairs to the home so some damage still remains visible.
“We’re sitting here looking at it; it’s like being punished,” Marshall said. “You got to sit here and look at holes in the door when you come in. When you come home, you got to look where your spring door, your glass door was at, and it’s not there no more. And you got to look at this big dent in the front door to where they took that RAM thing and rammed the front door. And we haven’t got it fixed because we don’t have the money to get it fixed.”
Carr said her children stay busy with activities as much as possible to be away from the house.
“My son always told me he wanted to be a police officer,” she said at the press conference. “But he told me: ‘Mommy, if a police officer does this, I don’t want to be a police officer.’”
Ultimately, the SWAT team found nothing connecting Carr and Marshall to Joseph Clark Jr. The suspect was located in a different county either the same night or the night after the raid, according to the lawsuit.
In conversation with Port City Daily, Marshall said he had no run-ins with the police to make them suspicious. However, since the event he said police have patrolled his road. It’s in an area with only a handful of homes, located at a dead-end that Marshall said always remained pretty quiet.
“Alisa has been followed by unmarked police cars,” Marshall said. “I’ve been followed and I got tagged and I’ve been to my mom’s house in Currie and [there have been] unmarked cars on the side of the road by her mailbox.”
A complaint hasn’t been made, he said, due to not trusting law enforcement’s protection.
“It really messes with your mind,” Marshall said.
The lawsuit
Marie Miller, lead attorney on the case with Institute for Justice, said her team reached out to Carr and Marshall after coming across a news article about the raid last year.
The lawsuit’s Fourth Amendment argument is based on the perspective that law enforcement intentionally used false information or recklessly disregarded the truthfulness of the information when they requested a warrant, which must be based on probable cause. The allegation of willful dishonesty makes the civil rights claim stronger than if law enforcement simply had the wrong house or established the suspect’s presence at the home.
“There are cases where plaintiffs are saying the officers omitted material, truthful information, or they included false information in a warrant and winning on those claims,” Miller said.
The lawsuit details that officers began looking for Clark after he was linked to vehicle break-ins. Miller commented that performing a SWAT invasion for a car thief was “extreme.” However, Marshall said officers lied to them about the suspect during the raid.
“They told us the guy had killed someone,” Marshall said Tuesday. “They said he was deadly and that’s the reason they came into our house, which we found out later was a lie.”
Based on cellphone location data, the officers thought the suspect had been in Carr and Marshall’s neighborhood, within 52 meters of their address (additionally, 30 miles away from the suspect’s home address). However, five other addresses are within that radius, and thus did not give the officers probable cause to search Carr and Marshall’s home.
The suspect’s car was recorded as a medium dark gray 2007 Nissan Sentra, as described by Clark’s father, and registered to either Clark or his father or sister. The lawsuit states the sheriffs’ offices began surveilling Carr and Marshall’s home after spotting a Nissan at the address.
However, Carr drives a silver 2017 Nissan Altima and the license plate number is different from the vehicle linked to the suspect. Cpt. Hankins and other officers are stated to have observed the home on April 9, a day before the raid, but there is no evidence showing Clark’s vehicle or Clark himself was at the home, the lawsuit indicates.
Carr said she questioned the Lee County Sheriff’s Department after the raid and was told her vehicle tipped them off.
“I said; ‘Nissan makes thousands and thousands of gray Nissans — y’all couldn’t have got a tag number because y’all had drones and everything else supplied,” Carr said. “Y’all couldn’t have one of your drones and look at that tag number, see whether that tag number go to this house or not?’ They said, ‘Due to what that guy had did, they didn’t have time to look at the contact number.’”
Based on the surveilling officers’ report, Sgt. Thomas applied for a warrant around 8 p.m. on April 9, swearing Pender County deputies “observed the vehicle the suspect’s father stated that he was riding in” and that the vehicle “has not left” the Clark and Marshall premises.
The lawsuit adds it is unclear whether Sgt. Thomas made these “false” statements of his own volition or just reported what he was told by the surveilling officers and did not confirm.
“Without the false and materially misleading statements and material omissions in Officer Thomas’ probable-cause affidavit, no magistrate could have found probable cause to issue a warrant to search the premises” at Alisa’s house or the accessory structures and vehicles at the address.
Miller told Port City Daily neither law enforcement agency has admitted to wrongdoing — though a settlement offer for the property damage was offered to Carr and Marshall.
The couple declined it.
After the raid, Carr obtained legal representation and sent a letter to both agencies requesting compensation for the damages to her home, which included a broken chair, torn rug, damaged doors to the point of non-closure, a burned sofa, blood on the walls and furniture, and clean-up of glass and belongings strewn about the house.
Carr estimated the property damage at $11,396; after an assessor with the agencies’ insurance analyzed the damage, it was estimated at $10,249.
Ultimately, Lee and Pender counties offered Carr a settlement of $10,869, but on the condition Carr release any other claims, demands or actions against the agencies for the events of the April 10 raid.
Though they declined the offer, Miller told PCD that Carr and Marshall are “entitled to compensation without strings attached.”
For Marshall and Carr, they’re pursuing the lawsuit out of hope it will make a difference in holding officers and government entities accountable and will prevent the traumatic experience from happening to others.
“It hurts me and my children to think of other people who go through this situation,” Carr said. “I don’t know how we will get over this.”
Pender County Sheriff Alan Cutler’s statement in full:
“On Tuesday evening April 9, 2024 just before 9 pm, my office received a request for assistance from the Lee County Sheriffs Office concerning an investigation and high risk search warrant service.
“Investigators from Lee County Sheriff’s Office had applied for and received a search warrant for 680 Messick Road in Willard. This order was issued by a Superior Court Judge.
“Shortly after 1am on Wednesday, April 10th, members from my office did serve the search warrant. The person named in the search warrant was not located at this residence. There were no reported injuries to any member of the residents at this location. Approximately 25 minutes after arriving on scene, EMS was summoned for a member of the household and that person was transported by EMS to Pender Memorial Hospital.”
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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