Family of baby injured by flashbang grenade supports indictment

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A federal grand jury has indicted a Habersham County deputy sheriff on charges of falsifying information to obtain and execute a “no-knock” search warrant for drugs last year that employed the use of a flash grenade and seriously injured a young child.

According to the Wednesday’s indictment, Autry’s statements to the judge were not true. The warrant obtained by Autry was executed approximately two hours later, during the early morning hours of May 28, 2014. The flash bang grenade was thrown directly into the room where an 18-month-old toddler was sleeping.

Family friend Holly Benton Wickersham of Janesville, WI, set up a GoFundMe site to raise money for the family.

Alecia and Boun Khan Phonesavanh, center left and right, the parents of 19-month-old Bounkham Phonesavanh who was severely burned by a flash grenade during a SWAT drug raid, attend a vigil with their daughters outside Grady Memorial Hospital where he is undergoing treatment, Monday, June 2, 2014, in Atlanta.

Police did not allow the Phonesavanhs to see their son, who was carried from the home by an officer and taken to hospital.

Autry also is charged with making the same statements to obtain an arrest warrant for someone identified as W.T. She confirmed there was heavy traffic going in and out of the residence. There was no police surveillance to verify the purchase.

Thometheva was not at the residence at the time of the raid.

His mother asserted in March this year: ‘His nerve endings are dead around his mouth and chest, so they will not be able to properly develop as they are supposed to, so they will have to go in and do stretching and grafts.’ Former Habersham County Deputy Nikki Autry, who arranged the botched SWAT raid, is moreover being charged with providing false information to get an arrest warrant.The federal indictment says the raid should not have happened.

There was no probable cause for the no-knock warrant or to search the Phonesavanh home for drugs.

“In this case”, he said, “the consequences of the unlawful search were tragic”.

A Habersham grand jury that looked into the police raid found “the drug investigation that led to these events was hurried, sloppy”, reports WSB TV, but the jury did not recommend criminal charges against any of the officers involved.

“It has really put his family through torture and a nightmare that we have to live every day”, explained Alecia Phonesavanh. Its civil suit alleges Autry agreed to surrender her Georgia peace officer certification in exchange for no action against her by the state’s Peace Officers Standards and Training Council.

The agreement totals $964,000 paid through the National Fire Insurance Co. policy for the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office.