Law Enforcement: Woman Charged With Killing FBI Agent in Drug Raid Will Argue She Thought She Was Defending Her Home from Intruders
An Ohio woman who shot and killed an FBI agent during a pre-dawn no-knock drug raid at her family home in Indiana Township, Pennsylvania, on November 19 now faces federal homicide and weapons charges. When police serving an arrest warrant for her husband broke into Christine Korbe's home at 6:00am, she fired one shot from a .38 caliber pistol from the top of a second-floor stair case, striking and killing Special Agent Sam Hicks. She was arrested moments later as she called 911 to report a home invasion.
Will they never learn?
In one notorious case, that of Corey Maye, a Louisiana man whose home was mistakenly hit in a drug raid is now serving a life sentence for murder for shooting and killing an intruding officer. In another, as yet unresolved case, Virginia resident Ryan Frederick faces murder charges in the death of an intruding officer in a raid that now appears to have been without any legitimate basis.
Robert Korbe was to be arrested as part of a round-up of drug suspects in the Pittsburgh area. He was one of 35 people charged in a 27-count indictment charging them with conspiring to traffic in powder and crack cocaine from October 2007 through September 2008. He was arrested in the basement of the family home, which he shared with his wife and two young daughters, as he allegedly sought to destroy evidence.
Christina Korbe made her first federal court appearance Monday before Magistrate Judge Robert Mitchell, where she was arraigned on second-degree murder and several firearms charges. A bail hearing is set for next Monday.
"She's totally distraught," defense attorney John Elash told the Associated Press. "All she cares about and all she mentions is she wants to be home with her children. Can't imagine that she won't be home for Christmas."
Elash said that while his client is "extremely remorseful," she will argue that she acted in what she thought was self-defense. "I don't believe my client's guilty of any crime. I think the evidence will show that," Elash said. "It's obviously a self-defense or a defense of others, and the others that she's defending are a 5- and 10-year old that were with her when she was on 911, making the call to the police that somebody had broken into her house."
Law enforcement affidavits filed with the court claim that FBI agents shouted "police" and warned they were serving a warrant before breaking down the door to the Korbe's home as the family slept. According to those affidavits, Robert Korbe said he heard the agents and knew a raid was happening.
"Was this, something, everybody's yelling at one time, so that nobody could understand what's being said?" Elash said. "Could it have been heard by somebody that was asleep or just woken in an upstairs bedroom in a large home? If, in fact, she did hear it was a police officer or an FBI agent, why would she fire one shot at one of them and not continue to fire?" he asked.
"She thought she was being attacked, thought that she had to defend her children," Elash said. "That is what was going through her mind. Only pulled that trigger for one reason, because she thought she was going to get killed or that her children were going to get killed or seriously injured."
Elash isn't alone in sticking up for his client. Neighborhood residents have begun circulating a petition asserting her innocence and holding a collection for the family's children.
"I honestly believe that she couldn't possibly have known that it was a cop," friend Angie McCarrison said. "I think she heard glass break, and she thought, 'Oh my God, my kids,' and that was the end of that."
However Christina Korbe's case ends up, FBI Agent Hicks is dead, a victim as much of overly aggressive law enforcement practices as the bullet that ended his life.
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What Ultimately Justifies Drug Raid Tactics?
Comment posted by Giordano on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 3:53amIt seems to be a no-brainer that dangerous SWAT-style drug raids could be eliminated by employing a different means of arrest or capture. The mayhem resulting from these types of raids is certainly uncalled for, especially when something as insignificant as a drug warrant is involved. Botched raids should be a clue that militarized invasions of personal property really don’t protect police officers as much as some claim. And the raids don’t protect the rights of suspects, their children or pets.
When drug raid tactics don’t make sense, it’s time to look to other, less obvious motives for the raids by asking some basic questions. For instance, what would it take to eliminate the anti-drug storm troopers and their murderous methods?
For one, undercover cops would need to watch a residence long enough to know the occupant’s personal habits so well that arrests can take place outside the suspect’s home during optimum times and circumstances. This means more effort, resources and money will be spent investigating and concluding each drug case. With fixed resources, it might also mean fewer drug cases overall and lower arrest statistics for the cops. In addition to the fact that SWAT teams have little to do if their job is restricted to cornered snipers, hostage situations and major street gunfights; the bottom line on militant drug raids is that doing it peacefully with a minimal loss of life simply costs too much money. This cost overrun might be viewed by some police agencies as outweighing the cost of big lawsuits when things go terribly wrong.
At least some problems emerge because the use of SWAT teams for drug busts creates a division of labor between the investigators and certain types of thugs whose only talent seems to be terrorizing people by knocking down their doors in the middle of the night. Communications have a high probability of becoming garbled when official police duties are handed off to emotionally wired up uber-commandos.
Needless to say, this is not the kind of policing we expect in return for our earned tax money, particularly in what is supposed to be a free, open and just society. Anything that ratchets up brutality in the U.S. in the manner of the malignant tactics employed in drug cases increases the risk of a major blowback. If history is to be our guide, then the blowback will comprise more and more crime and social disorder owing to an increasingly alienated and paranoid society that moves ever nearer to totalitarianism.
Giordano