Criminal - Knock and Announce

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

“I didn’t do what they said I did. And it was like, I don’t know how to disprove the police. I mean, it’s my word against theirs. I don’t really stand a chance.” In 2015, the 15th Circuit Drug Enforcement Unit in South Carolina gave a confidential informant $100 to buy marijuana from Julian Betton. And then they broke down his door. Officers David Belue, Chris Dennis, and Frank Waddell shot at Julian an estimated 29 times. We speak with Julian Betton and Jonny McCoy. Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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In 2014, a woman was pulled over by Myrtle Beach Police in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The woman was black, and the police said they pulled her over because of a taillight. They found a small amount of marijuana in her car, and she was given the option to avoid charges if she told them where she got the marijuana. As one officer later put it, she was asked, quote, who she knows. She says she did know someone, but she didn't know his full name. She only knew him as Jules. My name is Julian Betten, and right now I'm in Conway, South Carolina.

The police drove the woman to Julian Betten's apartment. They wired her with a hidden video camera and audio recorder. And then they gave her $100 and told her to ask Julian Betten to sell her marijuana. Julian is Black, and in 2015, he was 30 years old. It was a friend of my girl, at the time, girlfriend. It was, she had some problems after her father had died, so she had had a medical discharge from the military. And she had asked me for some, and I gave her some at first, and they told her to come back and buy some from me.

So that's what she did. The woman came out with what police recorded as approximately 7 grams of marijuana. She'd done what the officers asked her to do, but something had gone wrong with the video recording. So they waited a few weeks, gave her $100 more, and drove her back to Julian Benton's house. Well, I didn't expect her to come back and buy something.

That was kind of strange that she came back and wanted to buy. I was like, okay, we're here, but that's not, I mean, all right, this ain't something that's going to become a habit. She knew I would do it for her because I knew her situation. I don't know. I think she was pretty much more scared than anything when the police stopped her and told her that if she didn't give the person who gave it to her

that she was going to go to jail and lose her military benefits. On the second visit, the woman bought approximately eight grams, and there was a video recording. This gave officers from the 15th Circuit Drug Enforcement Unit probable cause to get a search warrant for Julian Benton's apartment.

The 15th Circuit Drug Enforcement Unit pulls together officers from multiple police departments across Horry and Georgetown counties in South Carolina. Its stated intention is to create a multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency task force to address major drug enterprises. When you look at the operational plan the Drug Enforcement Unit created for their search of Julian Betten's apartment,

the first thing you see is their insignia. It's a large drawing of a skull and crossbones in front of a marijuana leaf. There's also a sword and a lightning bolt. Underneath that, a sort of motto. Serving our community, one dealer at a time. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Julian Betten lived in a building with four apartments in Myrtle Beach. On April 16, 2015, just before three o'clock in the afternoon,

his next-door neighbor, Santos Garcia, was outside working on his moped. Julian Betten was inside playing video games. Julian paused the game to go to the bathroom. And upon coming out of my bathroom, I hear a loud boom. And I'm thinking my upstairs neighborhood dropped something. That's all I heard was, okay, what are y'all doing upstairs? It was kind of the thought. But as I'm looking up, getting ready to say that, my peripheral, I see objects coming at me in my living room.

So I'm trying to process that, but I step back and reach for my gun because it was terrifying. It was like, what the hell is this? And, I mean, it was just a reflex of me reaching for my first thing in defense. Did you hear a knock? Did they announce themselves? No, no, not at all. No. The next-door neighbor, Santos Garcia, said that he'd been standing there, and all of a sudden, several cars appeared. He said, quote,

A white car pulled up into my front yard, right in front of me. One of the men who got out of it pointed a rifle directly at me. I was told to get down, and I immediately did. I was five feet from Julian's front porch and door. Without stopping, several of the men who had just arrived immediately went up into Julian's front porch and bashed in his door. None of the men announced that they were police.

No one knocked on his door. No one waited any period of time for him to come to the door. And then Santos Garcia said, Within two seconds of the men bashing in Julian's door, I heard multiple gunshots that sounded like automatic weapons. I remember getting hit, the first shot that hit me, because I didn't hear the shot. I felt it, and it was right up under my right arm, like maybe an inch or two away from my chest, my nipple on my chest, my right side of my chest. And that's, it felt like more of a, like somebody had just punched me real hard.

And I thought it was, it was like, it was, it happened so fast. It was just like, okay. And I knew intuitively, I was like, okay, you're dead. That's just my, that was the last thought I had. It was like, you're dead. And I woke up in a coma six weeks later. According to the Drug Enforcement Unit's operational plans, 10 officers were assigned to go to Julian Betten's apartment

to execute the search warrant. An officer named Chad Guess is listed as the case agent. Three of the officers at the apartment that day shot Julian Betten, Frank Waddell, Chris Dennis, and David Ballew. They fired an estimated 29 times, and nine bullets hit Julian. Julian says he never fired his gun. Here's how officer David

Ballou described what happened. He's speaking to a lieutenant with the Office of Professional Standards at the Myrtle Beach Police Department. So I grabbed the screen door and pulled it open for the person to knock and announce and utilize the RAM. So I pulled the screen door, and out of habit, I announced police search warrant. Other guys started to stack up on the porch in kind of like a formation, preparing to enter. Chad Guess, he had the RAM actually in his hands. He was going to be the person to RAM the door by force if there was no answer at the door. He comes up to the top of the porch, goes up to the front door, and he knocks and announces police search warrant.

There's no answer. He hits the door with the ram. The door comes open, it swings in, um, two agents went in front of me into the house. Um, and those agents were, um, Frank Waddell and Chris Dennis. And then I was the third person through the door. Um, and so we were, we ended up one, two, three in a row, all side by side okay um and as soon as i planted my feet inside the door um i know i remember when chris dennis being first in he announced at least once if not twice police search warrant police search warrant um and about that time i stepped my feet into the door as soon as i planted my feet i saw a black male who i could identify from the pictures we saw of him earlier as julian mr betton turned a corner from a bedroom probably about eight feet in front of us eight to ten feet in front of us um with a gun handgun he was black in color

appeared to be like a large caliber semi-automatic weapon. It was fully extended. I remember he was wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans. His handgun was fully extended. His arm was fully extended out, and he fired a round in our direction into the center of the three of us. Okay. He fired one round or more? I don't know um i'm i distinctly

remember one round but i couldn't tell you if you fired more or not i don't know okay so you saw him with his weapon arm extended he fired around what took place at that point? Once that happened, my first instinct was we're being shot at. And so I had an AR-15 that was issued to the Drug Enforcement Unit. I put in my weapon in its direction and fired several rounds. I don't know how many, but just several. And I noticed in my peripheral, Chris Dennis and Frank Waddell were falling down. In my mind, I thought that Chris Dennis was shot and he was going down. He went directly backwards, but I could see he was firing his weapon out of my peripheral also. Okay. Once they hit the floor, the firing stopped.

I stopped. I saw Julian, I guess you'd say he kind of dropped the gun at his feet, took a couple steps backwards, and kind of fell back into the hallway. At that point, I knew he had been hit. I couldn't see any blood or anything, but I knew he had been struck. We still thought that Chris Dennis was hit. I checked on him briefly. He said he was okay. I saw Frank Waddell.

He had also fallen to the ground. He said he was okay. I saw Frank Waddell. He had also fallen to the ground. He had gotten back up, and we both, you know, I said, hey, we've got to move forward. We don't know if the rest of the house is clear. Frank got up. I moved forward. Frank moved forward covering the bad guy, or Mr. Benton. Once we got to him, Frank stood over the handgun. It was now at his feet, and Julian was laid out on his back. He was awake and alert and screaming.

Some of the officers were wearing body cameras, but it appears they didn't turn them on until after Julian Benton had been shot. We have one first-time suspect down with one gunshot wound. 10-4, one suspect down with a gunshot wound. When you watch the body camera footage, you can see Julian on the floor, obviously in terrible pain.

They handcuff him. He calls the officers, sir. They call him Bud. At one point, he says, please don't hurt me anymore. They put a tourniquet on his leg, and then you see paramedics take over. Julian Benton was taken to Grand Strand Medical Center, where doctors performed multiple surgeries. He was put into a medically induced coma for six weeks. When he woke up, he couldn't feel his legs. I remember waking up a few different times and seeing my mom in my hospital,

you know what I mean, at my bedside, and was like, okay, and kind of dozing off on and off. When I first started getting a memory back to what happened, it was a sheriff officer next to my bed telling me that I had a shoot with the police and me and him is arguing because I'm like dude I'm black I don't I'm not shooting at the police tell me what really happened and then they told me what day it was I panicked because I didn't know it was like I had lost a month and a half you know the last time I know it was like I had lost a month and a half. You know, the last time I knew it was April, I was waking up, it's June. Huh?

So what happened to that space in that six weeks? I got a phone call from a friend. They got a phone call from a girl that lived above him. That's how I first heard about it. And what did you hear? I heard that it was a shootout, that he'd gotten a shootout or something with the police. That's what I initially heard. This is Julian Benton's friend, Reggie Mitchell.

He says that when he heard that Julian was in the hospital, he went to see him right away and was told he wasn't allowed in the room. I got the reports from the news where they said that he shot at cops or something like that. I just knew that didn't sound right. So my first thing was to call Johnny. That was my first move. Johnny McCoy is a lawyer and Reggie Mitchell's old friend. They both grew up in Myrtle Beach.

They played football together. As soon as I heard that, as soon as I heard that they said he shot at the police, I knew that wasn't right. I immediately called Johnny. He calls me one day and he says, look, man, one of my buddies, this guy who I record music with, he's in the hospital. He's in a coma. And I said, well, what? What happened?

He said, well, the police shot him. And I said, in Myrtle Beach? He said, yeah, the police shot him. And I said, well, what did they say he did? He said, I don't know. I don't know what they say he did. I know they're saying that he shot them first. And then I asked Reggie one question. What did they accuse him of having in the house? And he said, all I know is Julian only messes

with weed. And I trusted Reggie right then. I said, well, there's no way that this guy had to shoot out with the cops over weed. So I knew that it was going to be hell trying to get the truth out in this case. But because it was marijuana, I knew, I knew that this young man was not shooting the police over marijuana. When Johnny McCoy went to Julian Benton's hospital room for the first time, he was told he couldn't see Julian because they said he was a restricted patient. Julian Benton was technically in police custody in his hospital bed. Johnny McCoy says it took some negotiation, but he was eventually allowed to go in and see Julian. That's when he learned the extent of Julian's injuries.

He had his gallbladder removed, his spleen removed. He's paralyzed from the waist down. He had a large part of his small intestine removed. He has had, I can't even count the amount of surgeries that this young man has had, because his stomach is where he took the bulk of the bullets or that's where the bulk of the surgery happened. He also had a nasty bullet wound in his leg.

That's why his legs, I mean, to this day, he's working on them, but there's very little there. But, yeah, it was the trach tube. The trach tube, I'd never interacted with anybody with a tracheotomy tube. And he was crying and emotional. It was really something. When I talked to Johnny, my main concern was, am I going to jail for the rest of my life? Because I didn't do what they said I did.

And that was the whole thing. And it was like, I don't know how to disprove the police. I mean, it's my word against theirs. I mean, I don't really stand a chance. The officers who'd shot Julian Betten had submitted signed statements, stating that they'd fired their weapons after Julian shot at them first. But when investigators collected the gun Julian had been holding and tested it, they found that it had never been fired. It was fully loaded. This confirmed what Julian had said from the beginning, that he had not shot at the police. The commander of the Drug Enforcement Unit was William Knowles.

He was later asked under oath whether any of the officers who participated in the raid of Julian Benton's apartment had been disciplined. He replied that they had not, because, quote, they didn't do anything wrong. He was asked, did they do anything wrong when they submitted signed statements that were false? Commander William Knowles replied, I don't know that they submitted signed statements that were false. I know that that was their perception, and that's what they believed.

There's a difference, in my opinion, between a lie and someone that perceives something differently. It's just, it was lies all the way up to, all the way up to the top and nobody above the people who shot me said anything was wrong with that. I love you. worth your attention, and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts.

Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast, Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions. What should you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. The officers from the 15th Circuit Drug Enforcement Unit had made two claims from the beginning. One, that they had shot Julian Betten after he fired at them first. Tests later showed that Julian's gun had never been fired. They also claimed that when they arrived to his apartment, they knocked and announced themselves before entering.

Police sometimes obtain so-called no-knock warrants. But in this case, the officers had a standard warrant, which required them to knock on Julian's door, announce themselves as police officers, and give Julian a reasonable amount of time to answer the door before entering. The Drug Enforcement Unit officers said on multiple occasions and typed in signed statements that they had knocked and announced themselves as police officers when they arrived at Julian Betten's apartment. Julian Betten said he never heard a knock. His next-door neighbor, Santos Garcia, who'd watched the whole thing, said he was 100% sure the police had not knocked. Here's Julian's attorney, Johnny McCoy.

So when you file the criminal discovery, they have to give you everything. So about three months after I filed my criminal discovery, the officer who was handling the battering ram shows up at my office and he's got this sort of like DVR box in his hand with no cords nothing just a DVR box and he's like hey man I just wanted to bring this over to you this is uh from Julian's house probably nothing and gives it to me i knew right then and there i had to call my buddy who knew anything about electronics we ordered the correct cords for it we had to buy brand new ones we plugged it in and when we got to the part where on on april 15th of 2015, at approximately, I think it was 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and the picture became clear, and we saw these officers pull up on Julian's front lawn.

There was proof they were lying. I knew they were lying the whole time, but now I knew that there was, you know, there was no way for them to get around it, that we had them. Like, we got them, we got them. That's when stuff started changing. That's when stuff started looking up for me. It was like, okay, we finally got something that disproves their lie.

It's like, okay, they lied, they said they knocked and announced before they came. They said they knocked before they came in. They said they announced before they came in. They said they announced before they came in. And then they said I fired at them. And then they said I pointed the gun at them. Which all four was lies. But we had to disprove one at a time.

And we went on ahead and fought. In the surveillance video from Julian's security camera, you can see a white SUV pull up right in front of the building. You see Julian Benton's next-door neighbor, Santos Garcia, standing outside with his moped. Right in front of the house. Then all of a sudden you see this white SUV pull up right, I mean, through the grass, right up into this guy's face. He's working on the moped. There's no insignia on the white car. There's no police insignia. You can't tell that it's a

police car. Then five or so men who are not dressed in police uniforms, none of them have police insignia on that's identifiable. Some of them have masks on. Some of them have baseball caps on that are backwards. Some have jeans on. Some have long sleeve shirts on. Some, you know, it's totally scattered. You can't tell who these guys are. Some of them have AR-15s. Well, most of them have AR-15s and one of them has a battering ram. They all exit this vehicle. Three of them with the AR-15s run up on the porch. One of them opens the screen door, and the guy with the battering ram on a dead sprint

comes up the stairs and hammers the door down. Boom. Julian's next-door neighbor, Santos Garcia, told investigators, quote, If the men would have just knocked on Julian's next-door neighbor, Santos Garcia, told investigators, quote, If the men would have just knocked on Julian's door and announced themselves as police, I believe Julian would have walked out peacefully. It did not have to happen the way it happened. In almost all of South Carolina, officer-involved shootings are investigated

by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, also known as SLED. SLED conducted the investigation into Julian's case and their findings were reviewed by an independent prosecutor named Kevin Brackett, who announced in July of 2015 that none of the three officers who shot Julian Betten would face criminal charges. He said, quote, the officers were justified in their use of force. They were acting in their own defense. Julian Betten did face criminal charges for possession of marijuana and possession with intent to distribute. Julian ended up having to plead guilty to the possession of marijuana and possession with intent to distribute.

Julian ended up having to plead guilty to the possession of marijuana charge, possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, where he sold to that young lady. He pled guilty to that. He owned up to it. But these officers never even got questioned about their lies. Nothing. The judge suspended Julian's sentence, essentially giving him credit for the time he was in police custody in the hospital. Julian Benton filed a lawsuit against the city of Myrtle Beach and the officers and supervisors involved with the raid. His lawyers, Johnny McCoy, joined by civil rights attorneys Burton Craig and Brad Bannon, deposed the Drug Enforcement Unit officers at length and under oath. At one point during a deposition, Officer Chad Guest testified,

It's not the law to knock and announce, you know. It's just not. It's the officer's discretion. Commander William Knowles was asked, what's the purpose of the knock, announce, and wait constitutional requirement? He replied, I didn't write it. How would I know what the purpose of it is? I know that it's a requirement, so we do it. I don't know what the purpose of it is. One of the officers involved in the raid of Julian's apartment, Officer Mark McIntyre, resigned shortly after. He went on the record stating that during his time with the Drug Enforcement Unit from October 2014 through April 2015, quote,

agents almost always forcibly entered without, in essence, a whistleblower. Some of the defendants settled for $2.75 million in March of 2018. Others, including Officer David Ballou and the city of Myrtle Beach, did not. Officer Ballou appealed on qualified immunity. The case was reviewed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The judges were critical

of the way the police had treated Julian Betten. As Judge Barbara Keenan said, they just came in to unload on this guy. The Fourth Circuit rejected Officer Ballou's qualified immunity claim and sent the case back to the lower court. And just before jury selection, officials for the city of Myrtle Beach settled the case for $8.5 million. Combined with the earlier settlement amount, Julian was awarded a total of $11.5 million. Combined with the earlier settlement amount,

Julian was awarded a total of $11.25 million. His medical bills have already exceeded $3 million. None of the officers received any disciplinary action. How are you doing now physically? Oh, I'm still... I can... I can take a good 10, maybe 12 steps with my walker. But predominantly I'm in a wheelchair for the most part of the day. But I can push it and get on my walker and show out for about 10 or 12 steps.

So I'm getting stronger. It's just taking longer than I thought it would. But my problem is my right leg doesn't bend at the knee, and I have some excruciating nerve pain, and it's kicking in right now. But it seems like it never goes the way it has in mind of its own, and we can't figure out why my right leg doesn't bend at the knee. But it seems like it never goes the way it has in mind of its own. And we can't figure out why my right leg doesn't bend at the knee. So I might have to have another surgery to get my knee to start bending.

But once that happens, I can maybe start walking a little faster. Are you in constant pain? 90% of the day, yes. How do you manage it? A great sense of humor. A great sense of humor. I try not to... I try my best not to let that get me down. I've never been a pessimistic person,

so I don't think I should start now. He says the first thing he did when he got his settlement money was remodel the shower in his house to make it bigger so his wheelchair could fit. I'm in love with water all over again. That was the first thing I bought was a shower. I got my shower, not even my whole bathroom, just the shower remodeled so I can fit in there. And I have a wheelchair that sits in there that I get in, that I transfer to from my wheelchair that stays in the shower. So

yes, that was the first thing I bought was a shower. What's your life like now? What's life like for you now? Simple now except for I don't go to work. I sit in the house and play video games for the most part of the day. You like video games? Yes. Yes.

What's your favorite game? Right now, I would say Call of Duty. I've never played a video game. I've only played Mario Brothers from like 1987, my whole life. You haven't played like Snake on Your Phone? Like the old, you remember the old Nokia's had the little snake? You ain't never played that little game? You know what? I actually, yes, I played that. Okay.

That's right. Okay. I guess I have played that. I remember that game. Oh, my God, I forgot about that game. Everybody played that game. Everybody played that game. Yeah, that was a decent game. But that was just something that keeps the time passing the time. What do you want people to know about what happened to you? That it was wrong and that I was too late to prevent it from happening to somebody else because Breonna Taylor kind of was the same thing except for she died and I didn't and I mean I was actually guilty of a crime. She didn't even commit a crime. I mean, police get away with everything, and it goes back to, it's the training.

The cops that shot me weren't the same cops that shot Breonna Taylor, but the case happened the same way. It's the training. It's what they're trained to do. So when there are 12 officers arresting one guy for selling a bag of marijuana, it's like that's wasting taxpayers' money every day of the week. And it shouldn't be something that people are getting shot over in any type of way. We contacted the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and many of the agencies involved in the Drug Enforcement Unit, including the Myrtle Beach Police Department, Horry County Police Department, and the Georgetown County Sheriff's

Office, but we haven't heard back. In May of this year, Julian Betten was invited to meet with Myrtle Beach City officials. During that meeting, they apologized for the shooting. Julian says none of the officers have ever apologized to him. No, none of the officers did. Would you like that? No, I mean, no, they didn't want to. They had a chance. They didn't want to. And they don't want to. If they wanted to, then it would be genuine and they would have done it. And being that they haven't done it means they don't want to, if they wanted to, then it would be genuine and they would have done it. And being that they haven't done it means they don't want to do it. It would be disingenuous

because there's no need for it. There's no need at all for it. © transcript Emily Beynon assistant producer. Audio mix by Rob Byers. Special thanks to Matt Majak. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com or on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show. Criminal is recorded in the studios of

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